Kim Elena Ionescu closes out Day One of Re:co Symposium.

How do consumers navigate paradigm shifts across social, political, and environmental spheres? What can retailers do to support them in this tumultuous environment—and is it actually possible to build trust? Mel Bandler draws upon her experience as Sustainable Sourcing Manager at Bath & Body Works as well as her time working with grocery retailers to expand their responsible sourcing programs to propose a path forward.

We may be in an age of incredible technological advancements, but few of us are exploiting these opportunities. In this plenary talk, Miranda Caldwell shines a light on the power of mass customization and explores what each of the four types could look like in practice for the specialty coffee industry.

There’s no doubt of the increasing importance and recognition of extrinsic attributes as key drivers for a coffee’s value, but with such a wide variety of possibilities and an unknowable future, narrowing our focus–or even choosing an ideal destination–can feel daunting. In this session, we’ll explore substantial change taking place in the retail sector as an increasingly diverse audience seeks “unique-to-me” and “fair” products. What opportunities do these changes offer us as we seek to plan the route ahead?

Infused or Not Infused?

A blind tasting of "infused" coffees will illustrate the complexity of where we might choose to draw a line when it comes to questions of green coffee authenticity and adulteration raised by Dr. Mario Fernández-Alduenda on Wednesday and open for discussion on Thursday.

Mas(a) Attributes, Mas(a) Value

Inspired by Mel Bandler's presentation and the two seminars on the SCA's forthcoming Coffee Value Assessment, this sensory experience explores the different ways in which “fairness” (sustainability) attributes determine a product’s value through the lens of a product operating along a similar "commercial-to-special" continuum, masa harina. 

As the "Processing Revolution" continues apace, it's increasingly clear that there's no industry-wide consensus on the definition of green coffee when it comes to questions of authenticity and adulteration. In this presentation, Dr. Mario Fernández-Alduenda outlines the questions we currently face and explores why it's so difficult to agree on upon this foundational building block of our future. 

In the ten years since Tim Schilling stood on the Re:co stage and announced the formation of World Coffee Research, what has changed? Dr. Tania Humphrey explores how this announcement shaped the potential futures and possibilities of our industry before turning her attention to what the next ten years may bring.

In the face of climate change and advances in technology, we’ve seen increasing interest in coffee’s many species and varieties as well as “bean-less,” “cultured,” and “molecular” coffee, all of which continue to prompt questions about authenticity and adulteration in green coffee. As new possible paths emerge along our journey, how can we decide which road we’d like to take when it comes to how we define and think about a coffee’s intrinsic attributes?

Since 2004, the SCA has recognized outstanding work in the field of sustainability with the annual Sustainability Awards Program. The projects, business models, and individuals receiving these awards are not only dedicated to confronting the enormous challenges facing our industry – from climate change to gender equality – but also to collaborating across geographies, cultures, and supply chain roles, and to to sharing the lessons they have learned for the benefit of the entire coffee sector. With each year we see greater diversity in the approaches that companies, organizations, and individuals take to confronting the challenges facing our industry. These awards reflect collaborations that happen across geographies, cultures, and supply-chain roles.

Everything is Cold

What are some of the cold coffee options at the forefront of broadening coffee’s consumer base? This sensory experience, a blind tasting of cold coffee options prepared in multiple different ways, was inspired by Cheryl Hung’s plenary talk and a seminar covering all the learnings of the Coffee Science Foundation's multi-year research project on cold brew with Professor Bill Ristenpart, Julia Leach, and Peter Giuliano.

What You Drink = Who You Are

Inspired by plenary talks from Andrea Hernández and Bill Durrant, this sensory experience explores the increasing diversity of consumer-packaged goods and how products are often used to show (or tell) people who we are by virtue of what we consume.

Portland’s Deadstock Coffee has been serving “snob-free” coffee for about a decade, developing its identity and place in the community through the elements of space, design, beverage offering, and flavor. Founder Ian Williams’ “sharp focus on accessibility” throughout the company’s growth and history offers us a case study in what it means to move beyond a singular sense of “specialty.”

Join Cheryl Hung, Vice President at Dig Insights, a full service market research consultancy on the importance of understanding coffee consumers through data and story-telling. What do the numbers say about what we’ve collectively survived in the last three years? More than ever, Cheryl weaves a compelling narrative on why we should be paying attention to the data beyond helping the business’ bottom line.

We begin our second session right where we left off: the shifting landscape of consumption. In this plenary talk, Bill Durrant will outline the current advertising and media landscape for beverages and offer insights from Exverus' recent research into the upcoming generation of consumers, before offering a glimpse of emerging technology likely to impact business' ability to connect with customers in the future.

Once we have a sense of the overall terrain, we will begin to hone in on the details of what these concepts mean for specialty coffee, right now. Who will come on this journey with us? In this session, we’ll explore connections between consumers and community, attributes and identities. If we are no longer focused on a “singular” narrative of what specialty is–or could be–what range of experiences is currently being valued? By examining case studies, contextualized with market research, this session will help us to create a map of possibilities we’ll draw from later in the day.

Everything is Cold

What are some of the cold coffee options at the forefront of broadening coffee’s consumer base? This sensory experience, a blind tasting of cold coffee options prepared in multiple different ways, was inspired by Cheryl Hung’s plenary talk and a seminar covering all the learnings of the Coffee Science Foundation's multi-year research project on cold brew with Professor Bill Ristenpart, Julia Leach, and Peter Giuliano.

What You Drink = Who You Are

Inspired by plenary talks from Andrea Hernández and Bill Durrant, this sensory experience explores the increasing diversity of consumer-packaged goods and how products are often used to show (or tell) people who we are by virtue of what we consume.

Known as the “SNAX-seer,” Andrea Hernández has an uncanny knack for predicting trends and shifts in all things consumable. In this talk, she shares an overview of the trends across the consumer packaged goods space, how our (collective) relationship to caffeine and coffee is changing, and what this means—at a generational level—in terms of how the coffee businesses of the future might think about their consumers.

Scholars and business people have long sought the source of value, and have come up with various models and theories about value creation. These perspectives can help us think about the components of value, but they all come up lacking when applied to coffee. In this talk, Prof. Fischer looks at how the specialty coffee market confounds theories of value. In the end, valuation is not a science and cannot be understood based on any single formula or equation: creating value is, rather, an art, creatively combining different sources of worth into unique configurations.

Not-knowing is everywhere, but it's never been more visible—or tangible—than it has been the past few years. Although this can feel daunting, everything new—ideas, products, business models—begins from a place of not-knowing. Businesses that know how to stay productive in the uncomfortable space of not-knowing are the ones which are able to innovate and adapt. And in rapidly changing industries like specialty coffee, these are the businesses which survive and thrive. Vaughn’s talk will help you reframe not-knowing as a productive tool for innovation, the obstacles you might face when trying to stay in a place of not-knowing, and what you can do to surmount those obstacles.

In order to map new, possible futures, we must first build a shared awareness of the cultural forces at play which will likely shape our journey ahead. Like the air we breathe, these concepts exist all around us, but we often take them for granted–and sometimes forget to take them into account when we’re trying to decide which path to take. In this session, we’ll deep-dive into some of the key concepts–uncertainty, value, and generational shifts–that have driven so much of our collective decision making over the past few years, and which seem poised to continue to play an active role in the years to come.

Change is constantly afoot–geopolitically, climactically, technologically, and personally–and if we are able to influence the outcomes, it is beneficial to act proactively rather than reactively. Otto Scharmer’s change management method, known as Theory U, refers to two methods of learning as you iterate and prototype solutions to problems: by reflecting on the past or by sensing, and working with, “the emerging future.”

After last year’s program, which gave us a glimpse of the many possibilities that exist if we let go of a singular narrative of “coffee’s next wave” (whatever that may be!), this year’s program is built to help us sense the industry’s future, exploring what it means to progress within this new paradigm of multiplicity.