Farmers Blend Coffee – a Vietnamese Specialty

Coffee connects People. Introducing the fascinating & delicious Vietnamese coffee culture; explore a world full of flavors & diversity.
Hi. My name is Dietmar, I am a German National living in Vietnam the past 9 years. I am married to a beautiful Vietnamese women and we have a wonderful 4 year old son together. Live is great. I am also the Founder of Farmers Blend Coffee, an Artisan Coffee Roaster located just outside of Ho Chi Minh City. I created Farmers Blend Coffee with a single mission; Introducing the fascinating Vietnamese Coffee Culture to the world. Why? Because it”s a unique combination of deliciously brewed, high quality coffee combined with the ability to enjoy quality time with the people you love and care about.
We created Farmers Blend Coffee end of 2014 after researching Vietnamese Coffee and connected with local Farmers in the central Highlands the past 6 years. Our goal was to make something special, something we can be proud of. So we partnered with local coffee Farmers and arranged direct trade agreements. This not only enables a sustainable living for the farmers and their families, but also it ensures the highest quality coffee, straight from the farmers. We pay an above market price to minority farmers and educate them about coffee growing and processing – in return we get “first hand” deals for upcoming harvests to be able to selected the finest beans.
Beginning of 2016 we started selling our delicious coffee thru amazon.com in the USA. This was a big and important step for us to gain the trust of our customers and increase awareness of Coffee from Vietnam. We have been voted Amazon’s #1 Release in the Coffee Category.
Running into some major issues with our past Logistic Partner beginning of 2017 we decided to put our Amazon Business on hold. We have not been able to pre-finance our green coffee beans, working expenses and the shipping / fulfillment costs which arise when working with amazon.com. The eCommerce platform makes payment to their 3rd party vendors only once the products are sold which would have created a negative cash flow for our small coffee company if we would have decided to continue this strategy.
Kickstarter allow us to continue our mission without falling into the negative cash flow trap whereas we can ensure the immediate and risk free shipping of all our perks to coffee lovers around. We are fully setup and have new logistic as well as fulfillment partners in place to ensure a smooth and on-time delivery.
Doing business out of Vietnam has it’s challenges. Shipping & logistics are expensive for small volumes which makes it difficult for us to reach new customers. With the funds we raise through Kickstarter we are planning to setup a new eCommerce Infrastructure which will enable us to work with North American / European & Hong Kong based warehouse and fulfillments services. This will allow us to fulfill orders immediately as we receive them with local shipping rates and without long waiting times.
What about freshness you might ask? To ensure the freshest coffee experience possible, we are only working with Airfreight Cargo. From the time we roast the coffee to the delivery into warehouse and fulfillment services it takes a maximum of 2 to 3 weeks. When the coffee arrives on your door, it will never be older than 4 to 5 weeks. Our package is designed for export purposes to keep long-lasting freshness without the loss of aroma and flavors. We are planning to consistently keep freshly roasted coffee in our fulfillment centers, meaning Inventory Management is key to ensure a high quality product arrives at your doorstep; over and over!