Fairfield Dolan students have gathered data from more than 20 Connecticut coffee roasters to study the direct trade model within local community coffee shops.
We hope to determine whether direct trade is a sustainable and preferable option for roasters and provide valuable insights into its impact on both producers and roasters.
— Associate Professor of Economics, Helena Glebocki, PhD
Throughout the spring 2024 semester and into the summer, Helena Glebocki, PhD, associate professor of economics, and her students in the Charles F. Dolan School of Business explored the viability and benefits of the direct trade model in specialty coffee sourcing.
Partnering with Those Coffee People — a Medellin, Colombia supplier of specialty Colombian coffee beans that directly serves coffee shops and roasters around the world — the project used qualitative and quantitative research to investigate how local Connecticut coffee roasters source their beans, and assessed the perceived and real challenges of working directly with farmers.
With assistance from the Dolan School's Mahoney Fund, which supports faculty-mentored student research, the team of researchers simulated the direct trade process and examined the associated costs, benefits, barriers, and overall effectiveness of this sourcing model.
To date, the ongoing project has offered students a chance to learn the challenges of the direct trade model in terms of location, relationships, and quality. Their hands-on research has given them an understanding of the intricate dynamics of the coffee industry's global supply chain and commodity pricing, "while also developing partnerships between roasters and farmers in Medellin," said Dr. Glebocki.
Fairfield Dolan students met with 20 local coffee roasters to discuss the industry and used surveys to collect quantitative data as it relates to direct trade and specialty coffee in Connecticut. “My largest takeaway was how important it is for many of these roasters to prioritize relationships with their coffee growers,” said Liam Hempel ’26.
“The mission of the project is to understand the barriers and challenges to the direct trade sourcing model in the specialty coffee industry,” said Dr. Glebocki. “We hope to determine whether direct trade is a sustainable and preferable option for roasters and provide valuable insights into its impact on both producers and roasters."
