VOCAL featured in Coffee Intelligence

At VOCAL, regular consultations with producers are central to understanding how market dynamics and price volatility impact the most important stakeholders in the coffee supply chain. Without producers, there is no coffee. And high prices, without risk-sharing and ethical procurement, do not automatically translate into meaningful gains for those at the origin of the value chain. That’s a system-wide problem.

Coffee Intelligence recently covered Ashlee Tuttleman’s reflections from the Swiss Coffee Trade Association (SCTA) Forum, highlighting why today’s assumptions about “high prices = producer prosperity” need to be critically examined. In volatile markets where prices can swing more than 40% in a year, contracts are meant to provide certainty; yet rigid “no-default” rules are increasingly exposing who actually carries the risk.

Up to 90% of coffee’s value still bypasses producers, undermining both livelihoods and long-term supply chain stability. As Ashlee and Irene Villavicencio of MAV Coffee emphasize, conversations about contracts and defaults must recognize complexity, context, and the structural inequities built into the system.