Sample Sleuth

What does it take to be one of the best-known coffee samplers in America?

A Rutgers University degree in agricultural economics (with a certificate in criminology) comes in handy at times, but John C. Finkel’s buoyant personality counts for more than credentials when it comes to commodity sampling.

Finkel owns Commodity Sampler Services, a second-generation family business started by his uncle, Chick Ferrara, in 1975. John, his sister Melissa Finkel, brother Dan Finkel, director of field operations, and operations manager Paul Ochs are based in Matawan, New Jersey where they work with samplers Craig Newbauer and Nick Caporaso. Steven Joseph runs the Norfolk, Virginia office. The company is licensed as master samplers of coffee and cocoa by ICE Futures (Intercontinental Exchange).

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John has owned the company since 1999. He travels 30 days a year. His clients are as far afield as Africa, Belgium, the UK, and Germany. On this day he is in Houston at the Dupuy Warehouse taking samples ― the essential first step in verifying the quality of coffee by lot. Finkel knows a lot of people from 20 years serving the coffee industry including Dupuy v.p. Al Hernandez and director of operations Jeff Hernandez. On his way to the stacks they enjoy a friendly exchange of information and a joke or two.

Random sampling and verification of coffee quality by independent professionals is the table of integrity on which trades are made. Growers sample, traders sample, and buyers sample to insure a level of trust in transactions and to avoid costly disputes.

Thousands of samples of agricultural commodities are taken daily at hundreds of ports. The stakes are high in transactions involving specialty coffee. A typical order calls for pulling 1-5 pounds of green coffee from a specific container filled with more than 275 60-kilo sacks. That container is worth $50,000 to $185,000 ― unless something went wrong in transit. What can go wrong? “Plenty,” he says.

“Arrival samples are where the rubber meets the road for an importer,” said Finkel. “Pre-shipment samples are just promises of what will be sent. We regularly see moisture damage including mold. Delays in transit exacerbate the damage from minor to major.”

He has documented damage from chemical contaminates from cargo previously shipped in the container. Faulty container repairs and incorrect preparation of burlap bags reduce coffee quality. He has documented “criminal fraud and misrepresentation by shippers and outright theft of cargo during transit and seen containers arriving at port filled with broken concrete or gravel and the potentially lethal fungal mycotoxin known as ochratoxin (OTA). Roasting kills the mold but the toxin is an extremely stable compound.

Collecting coffee samples is deceptively simple. Much of the work is done on piers and in ICE certified warehouses. Watching a pro like Finkel at work shows there is more to it than meets the eye. “We are able to examine the status of inventory in the warehouses, and be the client’s eyes and ears in the field,” said Finkel. Obtaining truly representative samples means climbing around and getting dirty. Finkel likes getting up into stacks that are sometimes piled five pallets high.

Bulk shipments require special equipment and special handling as well. To get a representative sample you start with as much as 10 pounds and reduce it to what we call the M.V.P. (Most Valuable Pound). These six-figure transactions are based on two-pound samples of which 300 grams will be roasted, making 2-6 cups of coffee to taste. Two pounds is 0.0000476 of the weight of a 42,000-pound container. You are basing a buying decision on a sample that is less than one half of one thousandth of one percent of the cargo — getting it right is important,” he said.

Sampling is “physical work,” he noted, recalling a fond memory. “We were hired to examine a delivery from an importer. There was a question as to consistency of quality within the lot. The roasting facility manager explained his concern so I immediately climbed into the lot, scoured the entire cargo with a close inspection, pulled samples, said my farewells and left.”

The client was on the phone before I even had time to prepare the report. It turns out the roasting plant manager phoned, spoken very highly of my professionalism and said that he could not believe how I had simply climbed through the entire lot without a second thought.” 

“‘Whatever the findings,’ he said, he was confident it would be accurate, because he saw for himself the samples truly represented the whole shipment,” said Finkel. “I was able to make my client look fantastic, because their client, the roaster, knew  the importer had highly skilled resources as part of their quality assurance process,” he recalls.

Sampler Services gathers more than 20,000 samples a year. “We spend a lot of time helping our clients integrate their systems with ours to make the exchange of information as friction-less as possible. The newly adopted Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requires roasters to document their  sampling procedures and protocols. We help make sure their procedures actually produce the results intended.

“Each day we send e-mail notifications of all samples drawn with their corresponding courier tracking numbers,” explains Finkel. “This makes confirmation of order completion and traceability easy. No more calling around to find out if a sample was drawn or searching for tracking numbers,” he said. “We conduct inspections and surveys of inventory, provide digital photographs and written reports detailing any external conditions present on the piers or in the warehouse.

Sampling is all about service, says Finkel, “we don’t do anything but take unbiased samples. Our independence is what insures the integrity of your samples.”

That and a friendly joke or two.