Coffee News Roundup: Week Ending April 12th

More news from the coffee world this week, including:

• The mergers and acquisition trend has now spread to the very edges of the coffee industry, with the purchase of “sustainable” reusable cup maker Huskee by the Swedish catering firm, Duni Group. A heartwarming quote from Huskee’s CEO: “Growing organically is great, however leveraged partnerships, rapid growth and international scale are really needed to catch vast opportunities that are in the market right now.”
• Luckin Coffee is selling Ethiopian gesha—a prized coffee variety that often sells for hundreds of dollars per pound—for less than a dollar per shot. If you’re a new Luckin customer in Singapore, you can download the app and try one of their new Black Cup series range for $0.99. I don’t know about you, but that seems quite cheap to me.
• Philz Coffee workers in Berkeley have voted to unionize! Staff decided to organize after an incident in December 2023 where management sent half the staff home for wearing pro-Palestinian pins. “In that moment there was a decision that we had … we can put some efforts towards pursuing legal action … because a lot of money was stolen from us as a result of being at home for rules that were never written down, or we can take that energy and organize,” one barista said.

Read the rest of the Roundup, including some coffee health myths busted, over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

If you missed it, my latest article looks at coffee competitions and the vast costs associated with participating:

The Cost of Competing

For many, elite coffee competitions represent the pinnacle of the industry. But the huge costs to compete prevent those without financial support from participating—and harm the industry as a whole.

The PouroverFionn Pooler

Until next week, it’s goodbye from our friend Merlin: