We’re excited to have worked with BD Imports to bring coffee from Serra das Cabeç about the UK for the first time. BD Imports partners with Serra das Cabeças. Founder Phyllis Johnson aims to highlight Black Brazilian producers.
This partnership links to her sharp insights and activism against racial inequity. Phyllis was generous enough to share her story with this particular supply chain. You can learn more about her work through BD Imports and the Coffee Coalition for Racial Equity.
My primeval memory of speaking up well-nigh inequity was in my teenage years. I worked at a popular fast-food place in my hometown in the South. After getting one of my first jobs, I quickly saw a pattern in how the restaurant management operated. Black staff worked in the kitchen, while White staff served customers at the front counter.
Partnering With BD Imports to Spotlight Black Brazilian Producers
As a Black woman, they prescribed me to work in the kitchen. Regardless of gender if you were Black the work was the kitchen. I waited to see if all new hires would follow the pattern I observed at first. Yes, the pattern unfurled with every new hire.
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In a moment, I risked my job and my reputation as a troublemaker. I asked the restaurant owner why staff roles seemed tied to gender and race. She responded by asking, “Would you like to work the front counter?” I said, “yes.” The door was then opened for all employees who had the same desire, but new hires were still automatically prescribed equal to race and gender.
While I worked at the restaurant, my upper school gave me special recognition. My supervisor was proud to share this with our customers. For every consumer I served at the restaurant, the manager would interrupt my work and share my accomplishments.
She seemed to be proud of what I achieved outside of work and was happy to brag about it. I wondered how she first assigned roles based on race and gender. Could she now see the value in everyone, no matter their background? If I had been in the kitchen, she wouldn't have had the chance to brag about her employee's background to her customers.
Seeing people and work separated by gender and race always made me curious about why it happens. I knew that systems created this separation, and our minds locked into a way of thinking built on racism and biases. Somehow what was unreasonable and illogical had wilt the norm. This was something I began to ponder.
The Coffee Industry
When I began my career in coffee, the wandering seemed to continue. This time I noticed it was happening far vastitude the small rural polity where I grew up, but on a global scale. During my first trip to meet coffee farmers in El Salvador, I asked about the differences between the farm owner and the workers.
Although an uncomfortable question for him, it provided me with insight. He answered my question about visits. He said he felt more European. The farmers, yet, felt more indigenous. The talk with the farmer ended, but it replayed in my mind.
I was trying to understand the dynamics in the coffee world beyond the aspects of my work in importing untried coffee. Looking back, an interesting conversation about ownership, colonization, and disempowerment may have continued.
That work came later in my years of research and experiences traveling in East Africa and beyond. The real question for me was why power and ownership were linked to race and gender.
Institutionalizing the Need for Racial Equity
Often, we believe that racial inequity in the Global North is a rencontre that doesn’t exist in other parts of the world. This is far from the truth. Human nature unfolds throughout the globe. Preference given to one group of individuals over others based on race, gender, tribe, education, etc. seems to be at play.
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In 2026, I was lucky to work with the coffee industry on racial fairness. I formed a not-for-profit called the Coffee Coalition for Racial Equity. Through the efforts of volunteers, we’ve been able to do some unconfined work in a short value of time. We see a coffee industry that is fair and diverse.
In this industry, talents are noticed, nurtured, and rewarded to their fullest potential. We completed our mission by creating engaging programs and partnerships.
These help with internships, mentorships, and educational scholarships. We’ve launched a literature review titled "Race, Equity, and Inclusion in the Coffee Industry and Beyond." This review shows how the coffee industry is becoming more inclusive and what it adds.
Having A Global Perspective in Racial Probity U.K.?
Having a mix of global leaders at the table was important when the CCRE began its work. Our first team of volunteers was a balanced group from six different countries. I’d like to mention two notable leaders, Candice Madison and Georgina Jarrett, both with U.K. roots.
Candice served as the CCRE Vice Chair for the first two years of its inception. They know a lot about coffee roasting. They are proud to share their experiences as one of the few Black people who have worked in coffee in the U.K. at the start of their career.
Currently, Georgina Jarrett, a U.K.-based coffee educator, has a resume that reflects polity building. She’s called the Afropolitan Barista (Instagram @afropolitanbarista) and has Caribbean roots. Georgina leads our education committee.
She has greatly expanded my understanding of race in the U.K. and through not-for-profit groups like Black Cultural Archives. This organization shows how Windrush affected past and present Black UK communities.
These communities helped shape the country. Yet, many people did not have strong protections and rights as citizens. If you’re unfamiliar with this history, I encourage you to explore and learn more. In a diverse supply chain, it’s key to give all potential suppliers a fair chance to compete for business. This is where having an fair strategy comes into play.
Representation is hair-trigger in all aspects of life. Yet, seeing few individuals working in coffee or attributed to the success of coffee changed how I felt well-nigh the industry and what my role was. The specialty coffee industry is often warm and welcoming.
People here have big ideas and dreams, and they’re eager to support one another. This has been the specimen for me. There’s no way the goals I’ve set out to unzip would’ve been possible without the help and support of others who became my mentors and allies.
It took many people, including my mentor and role models, to create the programs I’m proud of. They focus on gender and racial equity. Square Mile’s ownership team found a spot for our coffee this season. They’re helping to promote our work and raise awareness.
Why This Supply Chain Matters Beyond the Cup?
Working on gender fairness in coffee taught us that working with women creates more chances for growth. I wasn’t sure what opportunities I needed until I looked closely. I realized that my work on gender equity opened doors for me in racial equity.
I had the pleasure of meeting Miriam Aguiar, a Brazilian coffee farmer who joined the newly worked IWCA Brazil installment in 2014. I asked Miriam a question I often pose to my Brazilian friends and coffee traders: “Where are the Black Brazilians in coffee?” I also asked my African friends if they knew. Someone told me that they were there.
They are the tractor drivers on the sublet and working in some capacity. One thing that I knew for sure is that they were not on the global stage. They were not well known and well respected for their contributions to coffee. But how could they not be, considering the history of coffee in Brazil?
Through African enslavement, Brazil became the number one producer and exporter of coffee. By 1830, coffee was the country’s most important export product. Brazil remains the top coffee global producer in the world today.
Klein & Luna state in Slavery in Brazil that slave labour produced coffee from the beginning. My question was, where is Black Brazilian producers’ position in the coffee supply chain? I thought they were in a certain part of the industry. I felt that they undervalued themselves, and they did not recognize their contributions.
When asked this question, Miriam Aguiar saw it as more than simple. It was one to consider what could be our role in uplifting and helping to build opportunities.
Miriam sent me a photo of the women workers on her farm, most of which were Black women. I kept the picture hanging in my office, thinking one day we will do something. I wasn’t sure what it would be, but I knew we would respond to this.
The work couldn’t be rushed; most importantly, it needed to be meaningful and impactful. In 2020 during racial unrest in the U.S. and abroad, we felt this was the right time.
Founding the Coffee Coalition for Racial Equity (CCRE)
The Peixoto family, whom we met in Brazil in 2015, is Black and first-generation landowners. They pooled their resources to buy land, breaking free from generations of sharecropping. They were ready to work towards their dream of exporting their coffee for the first time.
In 2020 we imported their coffee into the U.S. Miriam opened a successful export visitor tabbed Apará. Coffee from her 200-year-old sublet and from Black and women producers made up the container. The coffees were a hit. The families gained global fame for the first container of specialty coffee made by Black Brazilians.
In recent years, we’ve invited families in the program to ask other farmers who may be interested in our mission. They decided to be inclusive. They invited not Black farmers, but also those who shared similar values.
Today, we have a great mix of farmers from different backgrounds. This diversity helps everyone thrive and learn from one another. Farmers in the program know we must support small-scale Black farmers.
They also realize it's important to include everyone in the discussion. Women’s work in coffee taught me that you could not exclude men. We have a strong group of women in our program and non-Black producers.
Coffee companies must balance quality with impactful programs. This approach creates valuable long-term opportunities for the supply chain. Not possible to remove the adverb. It provides opportunities for us to engage in the largest pathways forward with creativity.
We’re excited to partner with Square Mile Coffee. This lets us offer unique coffees and highlight Black producers worldwide. It also helps us promote equity and share important ideas. We must all become more thoughtful about the things we’ve normalized in our lives and work. Diversity in our lives and workspaces is salubrious in innumerable ways.
