We build lifetime relationships with our Farm-Direct partners by supporting one another’s visions, working together, and connecting from root to cup.
My business partner and I founded BIGGBY COFFEE and have been in the retail coffee café business since 1995. We have over 400 locations in 13 States. We continue to grow with a goal of 1,000 locations by 2028. We have served hundreds of millions of cups of coffee over that time. We know coffee.
In 2018, it became clear that coffee production was under threat due to climate change and the commodities marketplace. Due to climate change in coffee producing countries, wet areas are getting wetter, and dry areas are getting dryer. This change in the farming agronomy increases the likelihood of pests, plagues, and pestilence. Farmers are finding it difficult to farm and are leaving their farms. The commodities marketplace is a global supply and demand pricing system that most often pays the farmer less than what it costs them to produce coffee. Farming coffee has become too challenging and unprofitable, so farmers are abandoning their farms and moving to cities or migrating north.
Our solution? Create a Farm-Direct model. We buy directly from the farmer. In doing so, we eliminate all the unnecessary (and sometimes nefarious) hands in between.
With each hand eliminated, there is a savings that reaches the farmer. These savings provide the resources to change farming practices. This way, the producer can combat climate change, practice regenerative farming, and create economic sustainability. All of this creates stability for the farmer. Now, the farmer can dream and plan while forging a pathway for the next generation.
Bob and Michelle Fish accepted the goal of changing the way BIGGBY COFFEE purchases its coffee. Instead of a broker system, the coffee would be purchased directly from the farm. An entity was co-founded by Bob and Michelle in 2018 called ‘One BIGG Island in Space.’ The goal? To be 100% Farm-Direct by 2028.
The genesis of the name ‘One BIGG Island in Space’ came from the Apollo 8 mission. Astronaut William Anders took a photo on December 24, 1968, that was later named Earth Rise.
That photo is considered to be one of the most influential environmental photographs ever taken. Without exception, when astronauts look back on planet Earth they are always profoundly moved. What they see is a beautiful BIGG blue-green island (floating) in Space. They are washed over by emotion as they come to the realization that we live on this island terrarium gifted to us, together and interdependent. Ecologically and as a human race, we are just One. From space you cannot see borders, or culture, or language, or religion . . . you cannot see the things that separate us. We are all just living together on ‘One BIGG Island in Space.’
One BIGG Island in Space (OBIIS) accepted the goal of 100% Farm-Direct by 2028. We are happy to report that in 2024 BIGGBY COFFEE is serving 50% its coffee from a Farm-Direct source and is on track to hitting 100% Farm-Direct by 2028. In addition, BIGGBY COFFEE has a drip coffee blend called ‘BIGGBY Best’ that is 100% Farm-Direct, with over a million pounds of sales in a year. Today BIGGBY COFFEE has a more stable supply of coffee at a more stable price than ever before. The positive economic impact on the coffee farmers that OBIIS has approved as Farm-Direct partners has been life changing in a multi-generational way.
Our Mission
To empower consumers to be the positive change agent, for poverty and the environment, in coffee producing countries around the world.
Our Values
We are discovering very special farmers that are already treating their people right, treating the planet right, and are investing in their communities.
Treating people right can include the following:
- Paying above poverty wages
- Providing additional support in the form of good worker housing with kitchens and restrooms, access to potable water, medical care, free meals, and the like
- No forced child labor
- Providing a safe working environment with protective gear and showers
Treating the planet right:
- No use of harmful or banned pesticides and herbicides
- Regenerative farming practices that can include reforestation, protecting native plant and animal species, and composting
- Protection of soil health through mulching and judicious use of cover crops
- Good water management, including treating any wastewater from wet mill processing, smart irrigation, and water recycling
Community investment:
- It can look very different in every place we visit but might include:
- Building or supporting a local school.
- Providing community access to potable water.
- Facilitating medical screening and other health services.
- Improving community infrastructure like roads and access to electricity.
Our Methods
We want our lifetime relationships with our farm partners to thrive, so we spend time with our own boots on the ground, we facilitate a farmshare program, and we bring the soil to cup connection between producer and consumer full circle.
Boots on the ground
Before visiting a farm, we explore if our values are aligned; however, nothing truly becomes real until we get to the farm. It might be three or four visits before we determine if a partnership might work.
We’re not initially there to evaluate the coffee. It’s people first. And if we find people that are truly up to good things, only then do we consider their coffee.
If possible, we stay on the farms. We share meals with the families, the workers, and the community. We walk every inch of the fields. And we look at the worker housing. We spend time learning about their social goals. And we ask a lot of questions.
Farmshare
Something we do that nobody else does, to our knowledge, is bring one of our coffee producing partners with us when we visit a Farm-Direct prospect. It’s powerful, both for us, and for the farm we’re visiting.
The advantages for us are very apparent. A knowledgeable coffee farmer that shares our values (aka our partner) can look at the operations of another coffee farm with a deep understanding. Their understanding enhances our understanding, and it helps us make better decisions.
The opportunity provided by the cross-pollination of ideas and knowledge of new agricultural practices is palpable.
Full Circle
Most coffee farmers have no idea where their coffee ends up.
From the farm, it makes its way into the hands of an exporter in their country. But from there, who knows?
They certainly would have no idea what the café that it’s served in looks like, or who the customers are that enjoy it by the cup.
As a part of our Farm-Direct program, we’re changing that. We bring our producers here.
Meet Team OBIIS
Bob Fish
Co-founder
Michelle Fish
Co-founder
Dr. Jorge Ferrey
Director of Sustainable Farming and Quality Control
Wana Hagler Chipoya
Manager of Sustainable Farming and Quality Control – Africa
Journey with us into the coffee fields to meet our farm partners, walk their land, and learn their stories.
Follow Bob and Michelle as they search the globe for coffee producers that are doing the right thing for their people, for the planet, and for their communities. Learn the names, know the faces, and understand the places behind the coffee you drink, and in the process, help to bring a better way of doing things into existence. We are all on an amazing journey on this one BIGG island in space and these are the field notes.