Coffee Buying and Sustainability in Cafés in Helsinki

There are not many things done repeatedly day after day, but drinking coffee is one of them. Coffee is one of the most popular beverages in the world and essential part of daily life to many. Cafés are visited for different reasons, whether to work or socialise, but often a cup of coffee is enjoyed on side. Cafés aim to ensure good coffee for their customers. Though, farming that brewed cup of coffee requires a significant amount of resources. Environmental sustainability is perhaps one of the most pressing issues in the modern world. Increase in environmental efforts on the commercial stage leads people to expect cafés too to take sustainability seriously. This thesis focuses on the final phase of the value chain of coffee, consumption, with a focus on the coffee buying process of cafés. The purpose of this thesis is to find out what factors have an effect on the decisions cafés in Helsinki make about the coffee they buy. In this thesis, coffee buying is viewed as the action of cafés buying coffee from a roastery. The thesis examines the decisions made by the person in charge of buying coffee in a café and is limited to cafés located in the capital city of Finland. The objective is to determine the main factors that influence the buying of coffee in cafés located in Helsinki, and the research question and investigative questions are created based on this objective. The investigative questions aim to find out the criteria set for the bought coffee, the thoughts on the future of coffee and the sustainable operations in and outside of coffee buying in the selected cafés. Two major topics, coffee and sustainability, are addressed in the literature review. The theory helps to describe the key concerns related to the cultivation and purchase of coffee. This thesis uses the qualitative approach of data collection, in the form of semi-structured interviews. In total of five interviews were conducted during April 2020. Together with literature review, the interviews with the selected cafés prove that coffee buying should be done with sustainability in mind. The interview findings show that importance of good coffee and sustainable actions as part of business are evident. The views on sustainability and actions taken differ between cafés. The cafés all find it important to buy coffee that tastes good and is of good quality. The findings reveal that all cafés buy their coffee from a roastery and trust the roastery to offer them best possible coffee. Though, the research showed that the taste is not the only important thing to keep in mind. Availability of coffee at the time the coffee is bought is also considered important. Also, for every coffee purchase the cafés make, they cast a vote for environmental sustainability, for labour conditions and global justice. The research made it relatively clear that the majority of Finnish consumers are not too interested in the quality, taste, origin or sustainability of coffee. These four factors mentioned, however, greatly influence the decisions related to coffee buying in cafés