Glo Says Let's Talk Local, Vancouver

Salt Spring Coffee: Business is Care + Community

Gloria Chong Season 6 Episode 1

In today’s episode of Glo Says Let's Talk Local Podcast - Season 6 - Special Shorts (a weekly Business, Entrepreneur and Arts Podcast) host Gloria Chong talk to guest Mickey McLeod (co-founder of Salt Spring Coffee) about his 25 years of coffee roasting in the Vancouver area. Mickey joins Glo to share his humble beginnings, explain Salt Springs life long commitment to sustainability and community, plus learn where he sees the future of coffee roasting for his business.

Key Quotes:

The Way to Do Business
"But to me, that's the only way to do business, you know, you have to care about it, and care about people and the process, and, you know, the planet and all of that, we just have done that forever.  So it's what we do."

Coffee Is Like Art
"The thing about coffee, which is kind of interesting is that it's kind of like art, you know, I mean, you can interpret in a different way.  So you could give 10 coffee roasters, the same coffee and you'll probably get a different taste of 10 different coffees because they're gonna do it their own way."

Sustainability is Broad, Care is Specific and More Precise
"That's why I don't really like using the word sustainability, because it can be overused, and not really understood. That's why we talk more about caring.  If you start from the first part of the process, and care about the person, the family that grew the coffee, and give them the attention they need, and then they care about they're doing and then you care about the cooperative that's helping them and then you know, you care about the trader that we're working with, you know, got good relations, you just care each step of the way and then you can kind of drill down from there."

Resources:
www.saltspringcoffee.com
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