Fair to Farmer Direct I Pangoa, Peru.

In 2006 we made the decision to move beyond the traditional trade relationship with coffee co-ops and farmers - dealing with brokers - and established a direct trade model.

This evolved into the Fair to Farmer Direct program in 2010. All the coffee in our F2F program is certified organic and certified direct trade. We encourage long-term purchasing contracts with our partner farmers and co-ops, which allows for the coffee communities to have heightened income security and greater access to credit -- a transactional detail that is often overlooked by the coffee buying community -- but that we know is of tremendous value.

The drive to understand Salt Spring Coffee's supply chain is why we now spend a lot of time in Nicaragua, Peru and Sumatra -- the countries of origin for many of our brews.