> First, infrastructure. A wet mill—the machinery needed to process coffee cherries into beans—starts at $50,000 for basic equipment. Industrial-scale operations run into the hundreds of thousands. A moisture meter for quality control? $2,000. Drying beds? Storage facilities that prevent mold? Cupping lab for quality assessment? The capital requirements stack up fast.
I'm surprised there is no group trying to raise funds for small coffee farmers to obtain this equipment.
Your morning latte costs $4.50. The author traced every penny through 17 years of coffee industry data, from your local café to farms in Honduras. The result? Your barista captured $1.67 for 3 minutes of work. The farmer who spent 6 months growing your coffee? They profited $0.04. That's not a typo. Four cents. This isn't about individual greed—it's about infrastructure. The entire supply chain is architected to ensure 97% of value is captured before coffee reaches the farm gate.