Founded in 1977 in Boulder, Colorado, Allegro Coffee Company is built on a commitment of providing the world's best coffees to their customers. Today Allegro is widely recognized as one of the finest coffee roasters in the country. They select only the finest 100% arabica beans which best express the flavors of each of the world's great growing regions. Each of these regions produces coffee with a unique personality. Allegro calls this the "Taste of Place." To entice each bean to deliver its peak flavor they custom roast them in a wide range of styles to accentuate their unique characteristics.

Fair Trade Coffee - Sustainable approach to buying coffee

For more than two decades, Allegro has been supporting small farms, environmental preservation and great coffee. Allegro buys from farms that are committed to heirloom coffee types, maintaining habitat, worker well-being and growing their country's best-tasting coffee. They work directly with farmers to improve coffee quality and growing practices.

The folks at Allegro search the world over for producers growing artisan quality coffees in harmony with nature. They pay prices that reflect and honor this focus on quality and environment. These fair prices enable Allegro's farming partners to sustain their business in the long-term; to reinvest in the their farms and communities; and to implement sustainable growing practices like manual weeding, shade tree nurseries, water conservation, recycling, and red-worm composting. Allegro's buyer travels regularly to coffee origins, building on established relationships and always searching for new farms that meet their total quality requirements. This direct approach to sourcing coffee is not easy. Maintaining totally transparent relationships with farmers in many parts of the world are very challenging due to social and economic factors that are not in Allegro's control, but their vision is to continue to build on a supply chain where everyone is rewarded equitably.

Allegro understands that the act of buying coffee for consumers isn't simple anymore. A variety of terms define the ways in which coffee is produced. All of these agricultural approaches are beneficial given certain circumstances. However, it is important to remember that no one approach is, on its own, sustainable.

The Fair Trade Certified label guarantees that certified cooperatives received a minimum floor price for their product which is $1.26 for conventional and $1.41 for organic. TransFair USA is the third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States. It works with importers and manufacturers in this country to document business practices, providing a reliable consumer guarantee that indicates what coffees have been purchased from producers according to international Fair Trade criteria. Only those producer groups that meet product-specific criteria and are approved by Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO) are eligible to sell to Fair Trade markets. FLO is a consortium of Fair Trade groups in Japan, Canada, the US and 17 European countries.

Although Allegro Coffee Company buys from many co-ops that are on the FLO register, they do not pay to use the Fair Trade label on thier packaging, as they feel this is not fair to the many exceptional single family farms that do not qualify for this certification. (Only co-ops can apply for certification.) Instead Allegro focuses on building direct relationships with their producers and signing multi-year contracts at fixed prices, which are negotiated directly with the producers themselves. This protects farms from fluctuations in the world coffee market and provides the security of knowing that they have a guaranteed buyer in the future. Allegro also provides interest-free pre-financing to many of their producers to help cover costs related to harvesting. This relationship coffee buying model is a way of doing business that builds strong ties between Allegro Coffee Company and the conscientious farmers who produce their exemplary coffees.