Rosetta Roastery

At Rosetta Roastery we source single-origin and estate coffees, micro-roasting each one to best present its unique personality. We painstakingly source and roast coffees from award-winning estates and microlots around the world. We offer free bi-weekly deliveries within the Cape Town area.

It must be acknowledged, however, that excellent coffee only has a future if the people and environment that produce it can do so sustainably. This is a tremendous challenge, and requires commitment and intentionality. Here are some areas on which we focus to help achieve this:

We believe there’s true value in coffees that are unique and distinctive – the rapid growth in the specialty coffee market over the last few decades is testament to this. The quality of these green coffees needs to be properly represented by the prices paid for them – prices that enable producers to:

• earn more than it costs them to produce (a bizarrely rare occurrence!)
• re-invest and improve their business practices
• sustain a fair lifestyle

We work with a select group of green coffee wholesalers who share a similar focus to ours, and have instigated a range of processes. Here are some of the measures they take to tackle the problems outlined above:

• Painstakingly calculating the costs of production for specific regions, despite the shocking lack of data. Accurate cost-of-production figures help determine the appropriate price that should be paid, but accurately assessing these figures is in itself an enormously costly and time-consuming job; especially when fuel rates in a region can double or triple from day to day, farmers are mostly illiterate, and everyday business records – like invoices or receipts – are seldom issued. But in spite of this, our partners will determine a base rate, which is calculated for each region; this is a minimum price that our partners will pay for coffee that season. This figure is calculated in consultation with local stakeholders, and is significantly higher than the going rates paid to producers in the same region – including the fair trade price
• Paying premiums for quality. Over and above the excellent base price that is guaranteed, premiums are paid, based on quality scores achieved by the coffee on the cupping table
• Committing to a purchasing contract with producers prior to the season, so that pre-financing can be made available when producers need it most.

At Rosetta Roastery, we have always maintained that if we want to pay our staff more, and create more opportunities for them, then we need to create additional value in the products and services that we provide to ensure that we remain market leaders. Our training programmes  are underpinned by the belief that by investing in our people, we enable them to contribute to the service industry at a far higher level, and thereby command a far higher value within their spheres of influence. To do this, we start by paying our staff far more than the industry going rate, and we are committed to continuing to stretch ourselves in this regard.