nyheter & berättelser

går till Long Miles Coffees solcellsprojekt i Burundi

Jul. Förutom knäck, Kalle Anka, sju sorters sill och Stilla natt handlar julen mycket om omtanke. Ett tillfälle att stanna upp mitt i stöket och tänka lite extra på våra medmänniskor - både de nära och de som vi kanske inte ens känner. 

Från oss alla till en kaffeproducent

Vi, Johan & Nyström, brukar också passa på att ge lite extra så här i juletid. Flera av våra kaffeproducenter, som vi har långa och nära relationer med, verkar i länder och områden som får kämpa på ett annat sätt än de flesta av oss här i Norden behöver göra. Att tillsammans med er, våra kunder och kaffeentusiaster, kunna bidra lite extra känns därför himla bra! 

Kaffebären sorteras på kvällen

Kaffeodlarna i Burundi jobbar hela dagarna med att plocka kaffebär på sina gårdar. När kvällen kommer går de med dagens skörd till Long Miles tvättstation där bären ska sorteras, tvättas och sedan torkas. Vid det här laget har det hunnit bli mörkt och belysning behövs vid sorteringsborden för att de ska kunna se vilka bär som håller rätt kvalitet och vilka som behöver plockas bort. Denna process kräver såklart elektricitet! Det gör även vattenpumpar och andra maskiner, till exempel de som separerar bönorna från fruktköttet.

Elektricitet - en bristvara

Idag används dieselgeneratorer för att få el, med då det är svårt att få tag på bränsle blir driften väldigt opålitlig. Bränslet är dessutom dyrt och miljömässigt ohållbart! 

Solceller - en väg framåt! 


Tillsammans med Long Miles har vi startat ett projekt där vi ska bygga solceller på taket av tvättstationen. Tack vare den energi solen då kan generera ska driften bli både stabilare och billigare. Och samtidigt bättre för miljön! 

20 kr per kilo sålt julkaffe går till projektet

För oss på Johan & Nyström är kaffeproducenterna de viktigaste vi har och det känns härligt att kunna ge lite extra så här i jul. Och det finaste av allt är att ni också är med och bidrar! Ju mer julkaffe vi säljer 2022 desto närmare kommer Long Miles Coffee Project i Burundi ljusa, hållbara kvällar. 

 

The first roast in June 2017 marked the start of our new roastery in Länna, south of Stockholm, which besides its custom-built speciality coffee roasting process also houses our  green coffee storage, warehouse of finished goods, office workspace and visitors’ area for all people sharing our vision of bringing better coffee to the people.

Text by Anders Boajé

The dream of building the most modern speciality coffee roastery in Europe was more than a decade old once it was finally realised, as we started dreaming of this quite soon after Johan & Nyström was started back in 2004. Our first roastery, located in Tullinge south of Stockholm, started out small with a tiny room for a small roaster, a hand-packing station, and a desk for admin work. With the rapid growth of Johan & Nyström and our speciality coffee revolution, we quickly expanded to adjacent rooms in the old factory building where we resided and stepwise custom built a roastery to our own liking. There was lots of charm, mistakes, learnings and “thermal events” (a.k.a. fires).

Soon enough, we realized that the old factory building had its physical limitations and that our dreams were much larger. So, we started planning for building the roastery that would define Johan & Nyström for this and coming generations of coffee lovers, big words but in our view, this was the only roastery dream worth dreaming.  

Our Head of Production Joakim Ahlund actually designed the whole roastery process, in MS Paint.

After many years of planning, we could finally start building Europe’s most modern speciality coffee roastery in 2016 and completed the task by mid-2017. The ambition was not only to move our production and team to a new facility, but to enable an immediate doubling of coffee volumes since we had been given the responsibility for all of Espresso House’s coffee, serving some 1 million guests daily in 500 cafés, and to prepare the roastery for doubling these combined volumes many times over in the coming years and decades.

As a workplace, we want the roastery to be an open and inviting place that encourages the teamwork that is essential for delivering speciality coffee with a strong connection to our producers in origins across the world.

• Full flexibility with every new roast batch: every 12 minutes a roast batch is completed and a new one begins, for which we have full flexibility to blend green beans before or after roasting, send beans to any roaster, use the grinder or bypass for whole beans, and send any batch to any of our packaging machines. This enables full flexibility for every batch and enables us to always roast the coffee on order and deliver freshly roasted coffee.

• Full traceability of every coffee bean’s journey: with our automated transport system we have eliminated all manual handling steps while also introduced lots of checkpoints with data capture along the way so that we can trace any green coffees and roast batches completed in minute detail.

• Full transparency along the roasting process: all visitors can follow the roasting process and interact with the production staff, there are no hidden steps.

For a visitor, we want you to feel welcomed to share our vision of bringing better coffee to the people and we happily share all our knowledge from origin travels, coffee buying, roasting process, packaging, and delivery to all that are interested. The roastery has visits daily from customers, partners, coffee producers and coffee-interested consumers. Some come for the experience, some to be educated on espresso machines, some come to discuss coffee blends and some to help us develop further – but all should leave with fond memories of having visited a fantastic roastery, tasted great coffee and met some truly passionate coffee lovers. 

Text: Jonas Hult

It goes without saying that the past year has been very challenging, to say the least. For us at Johan & Nyström, restrictions and regulations have led to a drop in sales and volume together with many uncertainties about what’s laying ahead. However, that’s nothing compared to the uncertainties that coffee producers have been facing this year. Some of the challenges they have been facing and questions that they have been asking themselves are; Will the buyers/roasters even be there after the pandemic is over? Will they own up to their contract or will they default? If they are, will the coffee get shipped in time?

This past year we’ve seen massive disruptions in the logistical chain, which is crucial for coffee. Lack of containers, congestions in ports, not enough vessels, higher shipping costs all happening at the same time, in some sort of “perfect logistical storm”. Even if producers get the coffee out, what about next year? What necessary investments can be made in the farm? What investments can be postponed? Are they forced to sell the coffee to the lowest bidder at a loss to simply cover our losses the best they can?

As said earlier, we’ve seen a drop in sales compare to previous years. Obviously, that leads to less coffee being used and subsequently, less coffee that can be bought from producers. This year, it was especially three producers that were facing lower volumes from us at Johan & Nyström. When working with producers for more than 10 years, giving that sort of news basically makes you feel like the worst person in the world. Needless to say, you try your hardest to come up with a solution to at least ease the blow.

Together with the producers, we tried to find the best way going forward. Surely, us buying as much coffee that we could this year was a given. However, no one benefits from us over stocking on coffee. A big problem for many producers is access to finance, and often (ridiculously) high interest rates. Over 15% isn’t unusual, given the lack of collateral. A signed contract can act as such. That’s why, the second step was extending the length of the contract, to reach into 2023 and 2024.

The third thing was to pre-finance part of next year’s purchase. Meaning that we pay the producers now, for something that we will receive in 12-14 months. I.e., we’re paying for coffee that doesn’t even exist yet.

On a personal note, I’m very proud that we were able to do this, in the middle of a pandemic given the risks that comes with it, as well as the strain it puts on our liquidity in times when basically all other investments are at a stop. I also realize that this might seem like a big pad on the back for ourselves. In part, that’s true. Because I think it’s important for everyone working at Johan & Nyström to feel proud of what we’re doing. However, this is also a big pad on the back for all of you who’s buying our coffee. Without your support, it’s impossible for us to support the producers. So, a socially distanced toast to you!

Hur paketerar man ett av världens dyraste kaffen på ett sätt som tydligt förmedlar den exceptionella kvaliteten? I samband med dagens mycket limiterade släpp av Los Lajones Geisha från Panama, lanserar vi även en helt ny design som gör just det. Nyfiken på den kreativa processen och vägen dit? Läs mer här.