The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by MAP IT FORWARD

Advertising SponsorThis episode is brought to you by CoffeeListings.com, by Map It Forward - the marketplace where the coffee world does business.Find or list coffee, equipment, services, jobs, businesses, wanted ads, and other opportunities across the global coffee industry. www.coffeelistings.comEpisode DescriptionThis is part 4 of a new 5-part series on The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward, hosted by Lee Safar. Our guest on the podcast for this series is Pedro Manga, Sustainability and Impact Advisor.In this series, Lee and Pedro examine the gaps in sustainability across the coffee supply chain and ask whether the systems we have built are actually creating more prosperous coffee communities.In this episode, the conversation turns to the relationship between transparency, compliance and impact — and why the coffee industry may have undervalued the importance of simply doing what sustainability frameworks require.Pedro argues that traceability and transparency can help reduce exposure to corruption, poor business practices and unhealthy supply-chain relationships. But that responsibility exists across the entire supply chain, including at origin, where businesses and cooperatives also need systems for understanding where their coffee goes and what happens after it is sold.The conversation then examines the difference between compliance and impact.Pedro explains that compliance establishes the systems, practices and behaviours required to address identified risks. Impact comes later, when those practices can be shown to have actually changed conditions over time.That distinction matters because sustainability initiatives are often presented as impactful before enough time has passed to demonstrate whether the intervention actually worked.Lee and Pedro discuss EUDR, B Corp, carbon sequestration, tree planting, offsetting and insetting to illustrate why one-off sustainability projects are different from building systems that repeatedly produce better outcomes.They also ask whether businesses need to wait for an external certification or regulation at all — or whether organizations can establish their own internal sustainability standards and hold themselves accountable to them over time.Connect with Pedro Manga here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-manga-5802b8170/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_pedroplanta_/If you found this episode valuable, make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast and follow along for the rest of this 5-part series. ***************************************About Map It Forward The Daily Coffee Pro is produced by Map It Forward, supporting coffee professionals globally across the supply chain.Website: https://mapitforward.coffeeMailing list: https://mapitforward.coffee/mailinglistPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforward‘The Coffee Report’: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforwardInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mapitforward.coffee/Contact: [email protected]

Advertising SponsorThis episode is brought to you by Cropster, technology built by coffee people to help coffee businesses manage more of their workflow, from contracts and costs to inventory, roasting, quality control, fulfillment, and café intelligence. Learn more at: https://hubs.la/Q04w4bKG0 Episode DescriptionThis is part 3 of a new 5-part series on The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward, hosted by Lee Safar. Our guest on the podcast for this series is Pedro Manga, Sustainability and Impact Advisor.In this series, Lee and Pedro examine the gaps in sustainability across the coffee supply chain and ask whether the systems we have built are actually creating more prosperous coffee communities.In this episode, the conversation focuses on the growing disconnect between sustainability standards created in consuming markets and the realities faced by the people expected to implement them at origin.Using the Benecke controversy as a starting point, Lee and Pedro examine certification, Fairtrade, organic coffee, EUDR and other sustainability frameworks — and ask whether accountability is being applied equally across the supply chain.Pedro argues that regulations and certifications can create meaningful improvements. The problem is not necessarily the objective behind them, but the imbalance that can emerge when producers and cooperatives carry much of the operational burden, financial cost, data collection and long-term commitment required to meet those standards.The conversation explores why converting a farm to organic production can become a multi-year commitment, why producers often have less flexibility than buyers, how certification costs are distributed, and why traceability and transparency are essential if sustainability claims are going to retain their meaning.Lee and Pedro also discuss how better information flowing back toward origin could help cooperatives assess the financial stability of buyers, understand risk, and make better commercial decisions before committing significant volumes of coffee.The episode ultimately asks whether sustainability can deliver meaningful impact without a more balanced distribution of responsibility between production and consumption.Connect with Pedro Manga here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-manga-5802b8170/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_pedroplanta_/If you found this episode valuable, make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast and follow along for the rest of this 5-part series. ***************************************About Map It Forward The Daily Coffee Pro is produced by Map It Forward, supporting coffee professionals globally across the supply chain.Website: https://mapitforward.coffeeMailing list: https://mapitforward.coffee/mailinglistPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforward‘The Coffee Report’: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforwardInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mapitforward.coffee/Contact: [email protected]

Advertising SponsorThis episode is brought to you by Arcadia Green Coffee, Colombian coffee exporters taking fresh green coffee from Colombia to the world, farm to roastery, direct. New office now open in the UK.Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arcadiagreencoffee/WhatsApp: https://wa.me/353877871523Episode DescriptionThis is part 2 of a new 5-part series on The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward, hosted by Lee Safar. Our guest on the podcast for this series is Pedro Manga, Sustainability and Impact Advisor.In this series, Lee and Pedro examine the gaps in sustainability across the coffee supply chain and ask whether the systems we have built are actually creating more prosperous coffee communities.In this episode, the conversation turns to data and a major imbalance in how information moves through coffee.Pedro argues that the industry has become highly focused on extracting information from origin — farm data, production costs, carbon footprints, traceability information, farmer profiles and photographs — while far less information flows back to the people and organizations producing the coffee.That raises a fundamental question: what information would producers and cooperatives find valuable if they actually had access to it?Lee and Pedro discuss why producers may want to know who is buying their coffee, where it is sold, whether consumers liked it, why a buyer did or did not return the following season, and how value is added after coffee leaves the farm.They also explore why better information could help producers improve processing decisions, evaluate commercial partners, understand risk and see the contribution made by exporters, importers, roasters and other actors across the supply chain.For cooperatives and larger first aggregation points, Pedro argues that this becomes even more important. Access to information about downstream partners, their financial position and commercial relationships can become part of basic risk management — something that recent coffee-industry disputes have brought sharply into focus.Connect with Pedro Manga here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-manga-5802b8170/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_pedroplanta_/If you found this episode valuable, make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast and follow along for the rest of this 5-part series. ***************************************About Map It Forward The Daily Coffee Pro is produced by Map It Forward, supporting coffee professionals globally across the supply chain.Website: https://mapitforward.coffeeMailing list: https://mapitforward.coffee/mailinglistPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforward‘The Coffee Report’: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforwardInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mapitforward.coffee/Contact: [email protected]

Advertising SponsorThis episode is brought to you by CoffeeListings.com, by Map It Forward - the marketplace where the coffee world does business.Find or list coffee, equipment, services, jobs, businesses, wanted ads, and other opportunities across the global coffee industry. www.coffeelistings.comEpisode DescriptionThis is part 1 of a new 5-part series on The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward, hosted by Lee Safar. Our guest on the podcast for this series is Pedro Manga, Sustainability and Impact Advisor.In this series, Lee and Pedro examine the gaps in sustainability across the coffee supply chain and ask whether the systems we have built are actually creating more prosperous coffee communities.In this episode, the conversation focuses on traceability and transparency — two concepts that are often used together but, Pedro argues, have become oversimplified.Traceability is more than knowing the farm, farmer, or price associated with a coffee. Pedro explains how it can help businesses understand relationships across the supply chain, identify risks, and make better long-term decisions.Transparency, meanwhile, is not simply publishing all the data a company collects. It is about making relevant information available in a form that the people receiving it can actually understand and use.Lee and Pedro also discuss the knowledge gaps between producing and consuming countries, why information can technically be disclosed without being meaningfully transparent, the role buyers can play in demanding better traceability, and why price alone does not define a sustainable relationship.Connect with Pedro Manga here:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pedro-manga-5802b8170/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_pedroplanta_/If you found this episode valuable, make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast and follow along for the rest of this 5-part series. ***************************************About Map It Forward The Daily Coffee Pro is produced by Map It Forward, supporting coffee professionals globally across the supply chain.Website: https://mapitforward.coffeeMailing list: https://mapitforward.coffee/mailinglistPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforward‘The Coffee Report’: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforwardInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mapitforward.coffee/Contact: [email protected]

Advertising SponsorThis episode is brought to you by CoffeeListings.com by Map It Forward. The marketplace where the coffee world does business. Launching Sept 17th, 2026. Follow https://www.instagram.com/coffeelistings/ to stay updated.Episode DescriptionThis is part 5 of a new 5-part series on The Daily Coffee Pro Podcast by Map It Forward hosted by Lee Safar. Our guest on the podcast for this series is Jem McDowall, VP at Universal Commodities.In the final episode of this series, Lee and Jem look ahead at what the next 20 years could bring for the global tea industry.Rather than predicting a completely different future, Jem argues that many of the changes already underway are likely to accelerate.One of the biggest is the continued bifurcation of the tea market.At one end are highly efficient, mass-produced commodity teas. At the other are differentiated, artisan and specialty products such as matcha, hojicha, whole-leaf teas, and origin-driven offerings.The producers caught between those two models may face the greatest pressure.Lee and Jem compare this with the increasingly K-shaped coffee market, where businesses are being pushed toward either greater scale and efficiency or stronger differentiation and higher value.They also explore how consumer preferences are changing. Convenience products such as bottled and ready-to-drink tea continue to grow, while consumers at the premium end are looking for individuality, quality, origin, experience, and new flavor formats.Jem argues that tea also needs to do a better job telling the stories of its producing regions. Some origins produce exceptional tea but have failed to build the same recognition and narrative value as more famous regions.The conversation then turns to one of agriculture’s biggest long-term challenges: succession.Younger generations are increasingly reluctant to take over farms, and Jem says tea is facing many of the same problems already visible in coffee.They also discuss liquidity, rising commodity prices, and the possibility that stronger tea prices could create unexpected financial pressure for traders, factories, and producers that need significantly more working capital to move the same volume of product.The episode closes with a broader question about the future of agricultural supply chains.If governments, NGOs, and industry continue responding to structural problems by simply producing more, do conditions actually improve?Or does increased production continue suppressing prices and making it harder to improve wages, working conditions, and producer viability?As Jem puts it: more is not necessarily better. Better is better.Connect with Jem McDowall here:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jem-mcdowall-826932b/ Universal Commodities:https://uctt.com/ If you found this episode valuable, make sure you’re subscribed to the podcast and follow along for the rest of this 5-part series. ***************************************About Map It Forward The Daily Coffee Pro is produced by Map It Forward, supporting coffee professionals globally across the supply chain.Website: https://mapitforward.coffeeMailing list: https://mapitforward.coffee/mailinglistPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforward‘The Coffee Report’: https://www.patreon.com/mapitforwardInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mapitforward.coffee/Contact: [email protected]