...:::Sustainable Practices:::...

To Our Customers

Uncommon Grounds' commitment to serving only the highest quality beans, grown on healthy farms and under humane conditions, can best be summed up by the following letter, written by Russ Kramer of Hacienda La Minita. La Minita is Uncommon Grounds' main supplier of green beans; for any of our customers who may have questions regarding the coffees we serve, we would like you to take a moment to read on.
Thank you,
The Staff at Uncommon Grounds

The main body of the letter is as follows:
"Hacienda La Minita is part of a vertically integrated specialty coffee organization that also includes production, processing, export, import and trading entities. We sell green coffee to many of the elite coffee roasters in North America." "At our organization's heart is our farm, considered to be one ofthe world's most socially conscious and environmentally sound coffee farms. This is nothing new. We have decades of history demonstrating the progressive evolution of our farming model."

Environmental Resource Management:

1) We use no herbicides or insecticides. All of the weed cleaning is done by hand. This is a massive undertaking and along with protecting the environment, it provides added employment for hundreds of people.

2) Although we use chemical fertilizer, we soil test the entire farm twice a year, and design our formulas accordingly. The fertilizer is applied carefully and in minimal amounts in order to keep the soil in proper harmony.

3) We have a more than 200 acre forest reserve of old growth woodlands that we set aside over 20 years ago as a nature refuge.

4) Designed into the shade-covered coffee groves are blocks of interlocking natural forest. A bird, mammal, or insect can travel virtually the entire farm without leaving the cover of the natural environment.

5) Terraced coffee groves, defensively planted natural vegetation, and an intricate and carefully maintained drainage system guard against erosion.

6) Our coffee processing mill was designed with environmental protections as a key objective. This includes a residual water treatment plant and our own hydro-electrical turbine creating renewable and nonpolluting power. The mill has been awarded the "Bandera Ecologica" and proclaimed a "protector of the environment" by the government of Costa Rica for its progressive design and operation.

Human Resource Management:

1) We pay significantly higher wages than other growers. Our employees are financially rewarded for their skilled and conscientious labor.

2) We have our own fully equipped dental and medical clinic. It has been operating since 1995 and all of our workers and their immediate family are enrolled in a preventative medical and dental program that screens for potential health problems.

3) For any catastrophic health care problem that cannot be coped with by either our own physician or the Costa Rican National Health Service, we pay for private specialist care.

4) Management founded and continues to support our workers' association. We contribute matching funds to the worker's savings plans and offer financial management advice when asked.

5) Although many workers have their own houses and live off of the farm, we also provide modern housing that comes with our own hydroelectric power and piped-in spring water.

6) We have an "at cost" commissary that purchases basic staples at volume discounts. These goods are passed on to our employees at cost.

7) We have a life-estate housing program for retiring workers that have no home of their own. Although by retirement age most of our workers have their own farms and homes, all workers know that this option is available if needed.

8) We provide workers' children with school uniforms and annually assist the local schools with didactic materials.

9) We are active supporters of surrounding communities' public works.

10) We support the leisure activities of our workers by funding three football teams and a ladies' choir, as well as annual workers' association outings.

"Most importantly, this is not some sort of charitable lunacy. Coffee is produced from the earth by hard work. To grow great coffee, you must have a balanced, harmonious environment and a healthy, strong, confident, and contented labor force. All of the above merely represents our vision of a sustainable agricultural business. It is, of necessity, both environmentally and socially progressive, and contributes to the real and measurable success of our economically viable mode. Our management practices are fundamental to the quality of our product and a principal reason for our success. Our clients are proud of their relationship with us and they are not at all shy about identifying La Minita as their coffee source."

"Calling on our own coffee farming and processing experience, we have developed strict quality standards that we require to be employed in the production of our other trademarks. We know where the coffee is produced, and in what manner. Our clients who use our other trademarks are rightfully confident that their coffee was grown properly, humanely, and that the financial premium that we pay farmers for producing great coffee has, over the years, benefited literally tens of thousand of people whose livelihoods are dependent upon coffee production."

"In the case of Narino, Colombia, we are engaged in open market competition in our purchases of parchment coffee. We are required by necessity, not by fair trade or other outside entity, to pay farmers a premium for their product. This premium is based on a simple quid pro quo: if the farmer produces higher quality, we pay higher prices. For farmers who choose not to produce quality, there is the Colombian Federation who will pay a minimum price."

It is interesting to note that our program has been so successful that:

* The Colombian Federation has been forced to raise the minimum price paid for Narino coffee to 5% above that paid to any other coffee producing region of Colombia.

* Narino is the only region of Colombia that is experiencing production increases on a year to year basis in all of Colombia.

"In addition, the success of our program has allowed us to participate in community resource projects including the building of schools in towns where the coffee is grown."

"We do not believe that there is any other green coffee provider that can honestly offer the assurance of local knowledge and a complete understanding of business, cultural, political, and environmental issues in countries where coffee is grown. The vertical integration of our trading, processing, and farming make La Minita unique in the world's coffee industry. No one else can really bring coffee from seed to the roaster. We have decades of history and our track record on environmental and social issues is both transparent and unassailable; we have been public advocates of sustainable agriculture for decades."

Best Regards,

Russell Kramer Hacienda La Minita