The makings of your morning cup of java is the result of a long journey, carried out through a coordinated supply chain involving trucks, rail, ocean carriers, and ports.
As part of its 2025 thematic focus, “Unpacking Freight: From Producers to Front Doors,” CTS hosted a webinar in December on the process of getting coffee from the field to a store shelf. The webinar featured Patrick Hessini, head of supply chain for Cameron’s Coffee and a CTS Executive Committee member, offering a look into the complexities of coffee production.
It all starts in the coffee belt, Hessini explained. Coffee belt regions are equatorial zones between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. These areas in Latin America, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific provide the specialized conditions for growing nearly all the world’s coffee.
Hessini described how on a hill in Colombia, farmers hand-pick the seeds of the fruit known as coffee cherries. The seeds are rinsed and dried, leaving the green coffee bean. A small truck then transports the beans—on a narrow road shared with horses and farm workers—to a regional mill for sorting, quality control, and packing for shipment.
Larger trucks take the stacked and ready-for-shipment beans to Cartagena, the largest port in Colombia. In the case of Cameron’s Coffee, bean shipments from Colombia enter the U.S. through multiple ports, where they are loaded onto rail for the trip to the Twin Cities. Trucks then deliver the shipments to Cameron’s Shakopee, Minnesota, production facility for roasting and packaging before heading to stores or to online consumers.
Behind their coffee on the grocery shelf is a powerful team and numerous partnerships. As one of the fastest-growing brands in the U.S., Cameron’s produces more than 60 blends. Quality and sourcing teams work together to meet standards and ensure specific flavor profiles. Cameron’s supply chain team includes integrated business planning, strategic sourcing of beans (all beans are not alike) and other materials, quality management, production, engineering and asset management, and logistics and transportation.
The company’s focus on quality, sustainability, innovation, and partnerships pays off in many ways, Hessini said. For example, Cameron’s Coffee worked with partners to develop Coffee Eco Pods, the first completely compostable single-serve coffee pod, free of microplastics. The company also plans to leverage emerging technology for scenario planning, which will help it open new opportunities and stay flexible to supply chain shifts. In today’s tariff environment, the company has already adjusted.
“We have gotten much more nimble in responding to unforeseen situations, both in terms of supply as well as of pricing,” Hessini said. “Key to any supply chain resilience approach is just ensuring you’re looking outside your domain and building relationships with other partners. So you’re ready for that day when that scenario comes that you planned for.”
—Darlene Gorrill, contributing writer
