November Unfiltered: What's been happening behind the scenes

Welcome to November’s Unfiltered.

This month has been a big one behind the scenes. A lot of what we’ve been working on isn’t glamorous, but it’s important, especially as we take our next steps in properly supporting our European customers. The goal is simple: make the Green Coffee Collective experience just as strong across Europe as it is in the UK, without compromising on our values around transparency, sustainability, and accessibility.

Building better support for our European customers

Let’s start with the exciting topic of… tax.

When we opened our EU warehouse, I naively thought it would be straightforward. Coffee already landed in Europe, shipping to European customers, simple enough.
Absolutely not. And I owe an apology to our European customers who’ve been waiting patiently for a broader range of coffees and better shipping options.

Once we started digging, we found issue after issue that needed solving before we could scale responsibly:

• Registering for tax in every country we ship to

• Working out which EU countries treat green coffee as zero rated, reduced rate, or standard VAT

• Setting up accurate tax calculation for 30 different destinations

• Adapting our site to show (or legally disclose) correct tax at checkout

• Localising the site and translating content properly

None of this is fun, and some of it took weeks of research, but it matters. If we’re doing this, we’re doing it properly.

Why Europe matters to us

When we launched in the UK, we did it because we felt something was missing; small-quantity access to genuinely good green coffee, with real transparency and real credit to producers. That gap exists just as clearly in the Europe. We hear it constantly from roasters across Europe who want the same access and standards you all get in the UK.

But the plan isn’t to mirror the UK site.
Instead, we’ll offer coffees that are already warehoused in the EU for European customers. That means:

1. Supporting the importers and producers operating in those markets

2. Cutting unnecessary transport and reducing carbon emissions

3. Being proactive around EUDR and future traceability requirements

This approach protects sustainability, reduces costs, and keeps things simple and transparent.

Where we’re heading next

Now that the tax setup and site changes are underway, the next job is localisation - translating the site so it actually makes sense in each country. Automated tools only get you so far, so if any European-based roasters are happy to sense-check a few pages for clarity, I’d really appreciate the help.

We’ll be spending the next few months refining and improving everything for our European audience.

 

Operational updates: welcoming Simon

Another big piece of the puzzle is how we pack and ship orders within Europe. Until now we’ve been using a third-party fulfilment partner (who’ve been great), but long-term we want someone internally who lives and breathes the GCC way of working.

This creates a chicken-and-egg problem:
We don’t yet have the volume to justify a dedicated team member… but we know that to grow in Europe, we need one.

So we’re making the investment now.

A warm welcome to Simon, who joins us to handle European operations and customer support. If you’re ordering from Europe, you’ll get to know him very soon.

 

A new entry-level range for home roasters

This month we’ve also started testing a small product line that sits slightly outside our usual foundations. It’s designed for people who want to try roasting at home without a big upfront cost or the pressure of choosing between complex lots and detailed origin stories.

To keep the prices accessible, we’re using ethically sourced, lower-cost specialty lots from trusted partners. We keep the information light, we keep flexibility high, and we make sure we cover our costs without stretching anyone’s budget.

It’s simple, good-quality coffee aimed at learning, experimenting, and building confidence.
The hope is that once someone gets comfortable roasting, they’ll move onto the higher-quality traceable lots across the rest of the site.

 

Improving how we source for next year

Finally, we’ve been refining our approach to sourcing for 2025 and beyond.

Traditionally, we purchased coffees that were already available on SPOT from our import partners. Finance has changed across the industry though - fewer importers are landing big SPOT positions without pre-sold demand. Instead, they’re locking in coffee during harvest to manage risk.

This shift created a challenge for us. It meant we sometimes had fewer options than we wanted and not always the coffees we knew our community was most excited about.

So we’ve adapted.
We’re now working much closer to harvest, partnering with producers and importers earlier in the cycle to secure the right coffees at the right prices, long before they ship.

This lets us:

• lock in the coffees we know you want

• secure better pricing

• keep our offering consistent throughout the year

• maintain flexibility to bring in interesting SPOT lots when something special appears

It’s more work upfront, but it means better coffee, better pricing, and better planning for all of us.

 

Introducing our new Clearance Coffees

Following on from the changes to how we source, we’ve introduced something new on the site: a Clearance Coffees section.

This isn’t a “get rid of old stock” approach, far from it. These coffees are still tasting great, cupping well, and absolutely suitable for roasting. The reason they’re now discounted comes down to something simple: the way our sourcing model has evolved.

As we move towards securing coffees earlier in the harvest and committing to larger volumes with our partners, we can’t afford to have capital tied up in stock sitting quietly in the warehouse. Every bag we keep idle limits our ability to commit to the next round of coffees and those commitments are what help producers plan, invest, and keep their operations sustainable.

So the clearance range is our way of striking the right balance:

• You get great coffees at a lower price.

• We free up capital to reinvest directly into new harvest commitments.

• Our producer and importer partners benefit from more predictable, consistent purchasing.

It’s a win for everyone involved, and importantly, it keeps us aligned with our mission of supporting producers responsibly while offering good value to roasters at every level.

We’ll keep updating this section as needed, not frequently, but whenever a coffee is approaching the point where it makes more sense for it to be roasted in someone’s drum rather than sitting in our warehouse. If you want to hear about the discounts first, we'll be posting them over Whatsapp.

 

Wrapping up

November has been a month of foundations, not loud, flashy changes, but the kind that genuinely strengthen what we’re building. Supporting EU customers properly, tightening our operations, offering more accessible entry points for new roasters, improving our sourcing strategy, and now creating a thoughtful clearance pathway all move us closer to the long-term vision we’ve talked about from day one.

Thanks, as always, for being part of this community.
Your support gives us the room to build things the right way, even when it takes longer than we expect.