Q&A: Darrin Daniel and the Alliance for Coffee Excellence

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Darrin Daniel, a coffee industry professional for more than two decades, assumed leadership of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) in January. He replaces Susie Spindler, who founded the organization in 1999 and retired in 2014 but returned a year later to right the ship after the organization seemed to lose direction.

ACE is an international non-profit organization perhaps best known for its Cup of Excellence (CoE) juried coffee competitions, training, and online auctions connecting farmers with buyers around the world.

Daniel recently met with STiR in ACE’s new offices in Portland, Oregon, to talk about the Alliance’s restored direction and its plans for the future.

STiR: You’re an experienced coffee buyer. How do your skills transfer to ACE?

Darrin Daniel: A lot of my background has been in working directly with farmers. That was the drive when I was a buyer with Allegro and Stumptown (coffee companies). [CoE] is about identifying unique lots of coffee from farmers that in the past would have been bulked and been anonymous.

So, there’s a lot of synergy there with my background and having a lot of relationships with people and agencies in country. I’ve been connected to and worked with these people and organizations. There’s a bridge between the farmers, the agencies, and the roasters. There’s a thread that I can represent and tie together. It’s critical to understand all the components that bring this all together.

STiR: ACE’s reputation suffered recently and Susie Spindler returned to refocus the organization. Is there an ongoing need to reinforce that positive image in the industry?

Daniel: I have to be honest and say I think so. What we saw was a situation where we were rolling back our programing. As a buyer [before joining ACE], I was asking “what’s going on?” It was presented that they were going through reform and looking at how to repackage what they were doing. Many people thought that was a step back because the idea is to expand, not contract.

If you’re contracting to get concentrated, lean, and more effective, that’s fine. That was the intent, I think, but it wasn’t received that way.

When Susie came back, the first thing was to get back to planning. There was some misfiring that had occurred. I think it was distraction that got us off track. CoE is the core of what we do and that has to remain the focus. That and new country development.

The idea for us now is restoration, re-engagement, measuring impact, and making sure we provide our members with real clear growth. We have to re-establish that. We have to say, “OK we’re back. We’re into our level of program management.” We need to make sure we have that level of member commitment and there are clear lines about where we’re going. I think that’s how we get back on track.

STiR: What is Susie’s role now?

Daniel: She’s an advisor to the board and she’s slowly relinquishing the interim role to me and advising me. We have some task forces where we want to grow and she’s advising on that. She’ll move to a consulting role as early as this summer. That’s the plan. I wanted something gradual. I joke about having big shoes to fill and it’s true. There’s so much history and knowledge [with Susie]. There’s also mutual respect.

STiR: Has the organization’s mission changed much in 18 years? Are the basic philosophies and goals the same?

Daniel: Having spent the last month picking Susie’s brain as much as I can, I’m getting all this history. I can’t say that it’s changed that much. What’s changed is the market around it. North America is a good example. We had so many early adopters that grew with CoE. At the core, it feels the same to me. I used to be a bidder and I think the core of this is the same, the mission is the same.

I think the competitive landscape has changed with the marketplace but I don’t think that’s us. That’s the market demanding what it can bear. That’s good for the countries that want to participate. It’s also good for the emerging markets.

What hasn’t changed is that drive that the farmers have to try to produce the top-quality coffees. And, beyond the sale are the good practices, the agronomy, the information sharing. It’s moving everybody up and that was the original intent. That’s been the mission from the beginning.

STiR: The Alliance often uses the word “transparency” in its literature. What does transparency mean to you and why is it so important?

Daniel: To me, it’s all hinged on transparency as verification. Is that coffee grown the way you say you grew it? Is that coffee what you say it is? As an industry, we talk about worker welfare, price discovery, supply chain, and who’s getting what. Our auction is the final say about value. I can’t say ACE is the clearing house for all things but certainly transparency is at our core mission. Farmers wouldn’t enter if they didn’t think there was transparency on their side.

The industry has layers. The industry is relying on verification and authentication of coffee. We need to make sure our supply chain is transparent. That means going out and looking at the program’s smallholders and more. That’s going to mean years of work. Companies are very aware of the role they need to play but they know they must go deeper. They haven’t seen some of the conditions and obstacles toward improvement. In a commodity market, that’s resonating in larger ways than it was 10 years ago.

ACE is always trying to raise the bar on the premium side. The win is for the farmers and consumers who can say “I’m tasting the best coffee in the world.”

STiR: The Alliance is known for the Cup of Excellence and the Cupper Camp training program. Where do you envision ACE moving these efforts?

Daniel: We want to make sure we’re developing the program so we want to go into prospective countries and develop a cache of new cuppers. We want to introduce our [cupping evaluation] form, introduce the CoE experience. The camps run four to five days as we educate cuppers on how to be a cupper in the CoE environment. We’re getting anywhere from 15 to 22 people for each camp. We don’t want these camps to be too big.

Farms also want their cuppers to be better trained. We’re also developing cuppers as prospective bidders. We’re giving people insights to what these coffees can be so if they decide they want to buy coffee within our auction platform they are calibrated and ready.

We had very ambitious ideas about expanding [CoE] globally but we don’t want to outsource it. Sherri Johns [ACE’s training and events director] will oversee that. We will grow it. We’ll do more than two countries. We’re looking at Singapore. We have a pilot program in Peru. We’ll continue to see growth in Asia as well as markets like Brazil. There’s a push into Asia but we want to do this globally, any place where people want to do it.

STiR: Has ACE been able to play a role in helping improve the quality of life for farmers?

Daniel: We’ve seen the in-country dollars increase. That’s what happens after the auctions. Farmers are able to make connections with other buyers and look at larger amounts of coffee that are coming from their farms. Those coffees are at a higher premium.

But I look at specific people who are farmers. They say they can’t even fathom what has happened. Winning was great, they say, but the influx of new prospective buyers has been able to garner a whole new range of clients. That’s the unspoken thing that has happened.

I think there’s a ripple effect. There are coffees that didn’t make the cut at auction but we’ve been able to create a platform for those coffees to be sold at a really good base price.