Coffee Traceability and Pricing
The farmers we work with aren't just suppliers, they're partners. Every cup of coffee starts with their labor, knowledge, and land, and Swelter Coffee wouldn't exist without them. From the beginning, we've prioritized building long-term direct trade coffee relationships with women coffee producers, because stability and commitment matter on both sides of the coffee supply chain.
We love sharing the stories behind our coffees, but we're also conscious of how the specialty coffee industry's push toward farmer visibility can tip into something extractive. When a brand constantly asks producers to share their stories, their quotes, their daily lives — primarily to sell more coffee — that's not a partnership, it's a marketing transaction. We want to do better. That means sharing what producers are comfortable sharing, being transparent on our end in return, and keeping the relationship genuinely two-directional.
How we price our coffee
Coffee pricing is more complex than most people realize, and we think it's worth explaining.
As a globally traded commodity, coffee prices can range dramatically. Most commercial grade coffee is priced based on the C-market price — the global commodity benchmark for Arabica coffee, which changes daily. Specialty coffee is typically graded on a quality score that includes physical characteristics and sometimes flavor assessment, but that isn't untethered from the C-market price either. Neither cup score nor C-market pricing takes into account the actual cost of producing the coffee, or sustaining the people who produce and work on farms. This results in high rates of poverty and instability among coffee producers globally.
For specialty coffee, the price most roasters pay for green coffee — the coffee before it's roasted — can be broken down into a few main parts. The first is the price set by the cup score, determined by sensory professionals including Q Graders — typically not the producer — and is what determines what the farmer will get paid per lb. The second is the accrued cost to get that coffee from the producer or mill to the port for export, including coffee processing fees, local transport, and exporter costs like sorting, milling, and sample shipment. The third is the cost to get that coffee out of the country and into the destination market — green coffee importer fees and transportation like ocean freight. These three parts make up what a roaster pays for green coffee, sometimes with additional domestic transport fees on top.
Break down of what cost goes in to the green coffee base price
What matters most to us isn't hitting a particular number, but that our producer partners are setting the first base price to account for what they actually need to cover their costs and sustain their businesses.
Below, we compare what Swelter pays against the two most common industry benchmarks.
Swelter Coffee's green coffee pricing conracts, 2025-26
What is the C-market price?
The C-market is the global price benchmark for Arabica coffee, set by commodity traders on a futures exchange — think of it like a stock market, but for coffee. That price fluctuates daily based on factors like weather, crop forecasts, and investor speculation, most of which have nothing to do with the actual quality of the coffee or the farmer who grew it. For most of the world's coffee farmers, this number sets their income floor. Specialty coffee like ours is priced above the C-market, but it still casts a long shadow over the entire industry.
What is the Fair Trade price?
Fair Trade coffee is a certification that guarantees farmers a minimum price per pound — currently $1.80/lb for Arabica — regardless of where the C-market lands. The past year saw the highest C-market prices on record, but historically it has dropped well below the Fair Trade minimum. The idea is to create a price floor that protects smallholder coffee farmers when commodity markets drop. It sounds like a straightforward fix, but the certification comes with fees and administrative requirements that can actually exclude the smallest and most vulnerable farmers from participating. At Swelter, we prioritize direct trade relationships over certification labels — because we believe that's a more honest path to the people actually growing the coffee.
