On the occasion of our 7th birthday, Corner Store Network Co-founder, Alice Mahar, shares a note on the journey from 2018 to 2024.
Jake and I started Corner Store Network with the idea of doing business better and not much else. I'd had experience in hospitality as a chef, but neither of us had any background in cafes, coffee, or social enterprise. Neither of us had ever made a coffee on a home machine, let alone a commercial one. So we came into founding Corner Store Network pretty naively, and perhaps that was for the best. Had we been even slightly aware of the mountain we were about to climb, we may very well have been too overwhelmed to begin.
We were in our early 30s and idealistic when we started Corner Store Network. I don't think either of us ever intended to 'build a business', but we were committed to changing the ’business as usual’ status quo, and flip the narrative to put people and the planet before profit. Like Andrew, our dad, had always said, "Do the right thing, and the money will follow." I'm not certain all businesses find fortune following this philosophy but we've been fortunate that our community has undoubtedly supported us in our unique business model.
Our model was pretty backward as far as the global coffee trade goes: pay 100% to coffee farmers upfront and be in the red before you've even got the fire burning in the coffee roaster. I can't tell you the number of times I heard, "But that's not how buying coffee works," when we explained it to people with far more experience than us. But that was the whole point. Why should smallholder farmers bear all of the risk? If we're buying a product from them and going to market with it, isn't that a risk that should be, at the very least shared?
And, when we decided to switch from plastic to home compostable coffee bags, where costs increased from 8 cents a bag to 88 cents a bag, we were told similar things. But we felt deeply that if we're putting a product out into the world, then it should also be on us to think about the complete life cycle of that product. When we began Corner Store Network, we envisioned doing business better, and that included taking ownership and responsibility for the full lifecycle of all of our products.
Striving for better is a constant, ever-evolving, target. We're still on the quest for a fully electric coffee roaster, which would allow us to move away from gas to solar operations. We're constantly engaged in conversations with farming communities in Timor-Leste about how we can better support them (part of the answer, sell more coffee in Aus – hint hint 😉)
The reality is, whilst we may be doing something as simple as providing your morning brew, the impact, influence and progress your coffee choice makes, goes far deeper than the bottom of your cup. Coffee presents a myriad of challenges, from waste and complex supply chains to the livelihoods of smallholder farmers and the resilience of communities. It's intertwined with issues of consumerism, colonialism, and capitalism. Addressing these interconnected issues in coffee could be the key to addressing broader global challenges. All of these profound complexities are what motivates us, and we’ve also found it’s what you, our community, care deeply about addressing too.
We thank you from the bottom of our (reusable) coffee cups for coming on this journey with us, and for backing us with your constant support.
It means a great deal to have your idea become a reality and even more to have a community of support spending their hard-earned money to grow that idea. It never gets old for us to see your orders flow in.
Thank you for seven years of support, here’s to seven more. 🥳
