Farmer Brothers

Honoree: Mid-Size – Food Industry

Company Overview

Farmer Brothers is a leading national coffee roaster, wholesaler and distributor of coffee, tea and culinary products headquartered in Northlake, Texas. Farmer Brothers has approximately 1,500 employees, 491 of which live and work in the State of Texas. Their product lines incorporate organic, fair trade, and sustainably produced coffee beans. With a full line of hot and iced teas, spices, mixes, and coffee/tea brewing equipment, Farmer Brothers delivers sustainable comprehensive beverage planning services to its 65,000+ customers across the US.

Sustainable Business Strategy

For over 100 years, Farmer Brothers has prioritized a high standard of service to their customers and employees. In planning for a sustainable future, Farmer Brothers has expanded their high standards into their business operations, extending exceptional service to every person in their supply chain and every community that they touch. They strive to ensure that quality, sustainability, safety, and good value are embodied in every product. To put their ideals into action, they map sustainability issues into their SEED (social, environmental, and economic development) strategic framework.

Farmer Brothers carefully monitors the impact they have on our planet. They use their year-on-year evaluations to identify actions that will help them reduce their emissions. Since their domestic carbon footprint tends to be dominated by the use of energy—electricity and fuels—they’ve focused their efforts on minimizing energy consumption. Farmer Brothers publicly reports their carbon footprint each year through the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP). Additionally, all of their sustainability efforts are guided by material aspects to their company, which were determined using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

Farmer Brothers further proves conservation is a business priority for them, investing approximately $95 million in their new Texas location, who’s corporate offices are LEED® Silver Certified. The direct economic value generated from from Farmer Brothers in their 2018 Fiscal Year was $608.4 million. Farmer Brothers values where they get their coffee, from the plant, to the grower, to the community from which they source – 23.3% of their coffees are sourced from supply chains that they have assessed no risk of significant potential negative impacts on local communities. Further, 1,869 coffee growers in Colombia and Nicaragua participated in their Project D.I.R.E.C.T. program, receiving an average of 8 hours of training per year on topics related to human rights. Over $4 million has been paid in price premiums to farmers through Project D.I.R.E.C.T. – these price premiums are paid on top of the price of coffee that goes directly into farmers pockets to invest in sustainable practices.

Environmental Stewardship

Integrating sustainability into their employee culture is what has allowed Farmer Brothers to succeed in their environmental goals. Farmer Brothers believes they can only succeed when they all work together, and that’s why they’ve developed the SEED committee, an Employee Sustainability Program. The SEED committee’s purpose is to identify and implement the most promising ideas for social, environmental, and economic development. Comprised of employees from human resources, IT, direct store delivery, green coffee, manufacturing, finance, legal, marketing, and sustainability departments, the team is intentionally designed to bring diverse perspectives and ideas to the table. Together, they’ve rolled out employee-generated solutions for fuel-efficient trucking across their entire fleet, cardboard recycling at their branches, and employee education and recognition programs that reward individual change-makers throughout their company. Farmer Brothers has seen when they all work together and do their part, they can develop creative sustainable ideas and drive action. Throughout their organization, employees have been rethinking fundamental tasks with the goal of leaving a positive impact on the environment.

Conservation Programs

Waste and Water Reduction Programs

Internally, Farmer Brothers is advancing sustainability by moving closer to their goal of diverting 90% of their waste from landfills or “zero waste” by tapping into employees’ innovative ideas. All three of their roasting plants and their five distribution centers have already attained zero waste this year. Company-wide, Farmer Brothers diverts 79% of the waste they generate away from landfills. Ultimately, to become a zero-waste-to-landfill company, they have on-site recycling and composting programs that recycle paper, corrugated paper, glass, metal, food, and coffee waste. They also work with local recycling programs and partners in order to find second uses for their burlap bags and other raw material containers. Further, Farmer Brothers reclaimed and refurbished approximately 6,150 pieces of commercial beverage equipment, totaling more than 135 tons in weight.

Beyond waste reduction, Farmer Brothers monitors and manages their water use. To achieve this, they collect and redistribute used water and reduce amount of water consumption and usage. They have seen a reduction in water usage by 15% through specific process changes in their operations. In one of their roasteries, their wastewater is collected and redistributed to native plants and landscaping onsite and routed away from local streams and waterways.

Emissions and Energy Management

At Farmer Brothers’ Houston, Texas plant, they made big changes to reduce the carbon footprint of their roasting operations. Over the past few years, they replaced the roasters’ circulating systems. This reduces heat loss due to cracks and holes in the duct and refractory and improve safety by reducing the amount of smoke escaping the system while roasting. They also initiated the replacement of all the metal halide bulbs (250 watts) with CFL lamps (150 watts). They anticipate a savings of 138,000 kWh and a reduced consumption of 70% in their main warehouse.

Their new roasting and distribution facility in Northlake, Texas features an all LED lighting plan, occupancy and motion sensors that control warehouse lighting when there is no activity, lumen sensors that turn off lights when there is adequate natural lighting, low flow plumbing fixtures, and employee carpooling with HEV preferential parking. Additionally, their landscaping features low-irrigation native Texas plants, a reflective pavement parking lot and roof structure to reduce the cooling loads on their building in the summer, and insulated walls and windows to reduce their heating needs in the winter.

Building a Sustainable Future

Farmer Brothers believes energy production has reached a critical crossroads across the globe. Easy-to-access fossil fuels are rapidly being depleted, causing energy producers to turn to dirtier fuels that are more difficult to extract and refine, such as oil from tar sands. At the same time, energy is a critical resource for the operation of their company and one of their biggest expenses. Farmer Brothers is seeking out cleaner, renewable energy sources to positively impact their environmental emissions of greenhouse gasses and other pollutants that occur in their value chain.

Climate change is a central issue within each pillar of the company’s makeup as their business works toward sustainability within the Farmer Brothers SEED framework. It has the potential to impact all of their products and services, and none more so than in the production of their central offering: coffee. Coffee plants are highly sensitive to ambient temperature, and as the climate warms, many traditional coffee growing regions may prove unable to sustain a coffee crop due to changes in temperature or rainfall. For mountain-growing regions, land suitable for coffee growing may disappear as higher temperatures force cultivation to move higher up mountains, where land is less plentiful and soil quality is worse. In addition to the direct effects on their supply chain, they also believe climate change is one of the most pressing environmental issues of the coming century. Because of this, they are committed to delivering exceptional coffee to their customers with less greenhouse gasses emitted along the way.

Texan-Led Conservation

When the Farmer Brothers leadership looked for new locations, they quickly focused on the North Texas area for several reasons. Primarily, they found the availability of a variety of transportation options favorable. Access to the railway system, Texas water ports, and an international airline terminal means that they can efficiently receive and ship product, minimizing their contribution to the overall carbon footprint. Additionally, they found the local politicians and economic development groups so welcoming; which spoke directly to the type of company culture they promote at Farmer Brothers.