Our Company
About Us
Founded in 1995 by Peter Pesce, past Chairman of the Coffee Association of Canada and ‘reputedly the best cupper in Canada’*, Reunion Coffee Roasters has over three decades of experience in sourcing, blending and roasting coffee for the high-end food service market. Today, we have expanded our reach to serve the unique needs of customers from the hospitality, entertainment, corporate and retail sectors.
Reunion’s mission is to provide sustainable coffee, from seed to cup. To do this, we partner with farms and customers from across the world who share in our commitment to creating high-quality, ethically produced coffee. We operate a facility powered by renewable energy headquartered in Oakville, Ontario (Canada), and we are a Certified B Corporation.
In 2015, we opened our flagship retail cafe located in Toronto’s Roncesvalles Village. In 2018, the company was recognized as one of Canada’s Greenest Employers. In 2015, we were named Roast Magazine’s Macro Roaster of the Year.
Certifications and Technologies
Bullfrog Power
Reunion Coffee Roasters is Canada’s largest coffee roaster to be bullfrogpowered and has been choosing 100% green, carbon-free power for its roastery and coffee bar since June 2008.
http://bullfrogpower.com
Organic Certification
For a coffee to be certified organic, it must be grown in a manner that excludes the use of fertilizers, pesticides, hormone treatments and steroids. Organic farmers instead must rely on superior growing practices, natural fertilizers and alternative methods of pest and disease control.
http://www.usda.gov
B Corporation
B Corporations are a new kind of company working toward one unifying goal: to incorporate social and environmental benefits into the definition of success in business.
http://www.bcorporation.net/
Fair Trade USA
Reunion is proud to offer coffees that are certified as both Fair Trade and organic. These double-certified coffees support economic stability for farmers in producing countries and environmentally sound farming techniques.
http://www.fairtradeusa.org
Rainforest Alliance
The Rainforest Alliance is an international non-profit organization that works to conserve biodiversity and promote the rights and well-being of workers, their families and communities.
http://www.rainforest-alliance.org
TCO Cert
Our roasting facility has been inspected and certified by TCO Cert for the processing of organic coffee.
http://www.tcocert.ca
Trees for the Future
Through Trees for the Future, we plant two trees in a developing coffee-producing country for every pound of Sierra Verde coffee sold.
http://www.treesforthefuture.org/
With our customer's support, we have been able to help Trees for the Future plant over 800,000 trees in Haiti, Brazil and Tanzania so far.
Native Energy
NativeEnergy is an expert provider of carbon offsets, renewable energy credits, and carbon accounting software. Since 2000, NativeEnergy’s customers have helped build over 50 projects that are now keeping millions of tons of greenhouse gases out of the air. All NativeEnergy carbon offsets undergo third-party validation and verification.
Initiatives
The Colombia Las Hermosas Project
Our relationship with the Las Hermosas farmers started in 2004 when we discovered an exceptional Colombian coffee from a farming cooperative in the South Tolima region. In an effort to give back to this community, we donate funds each year to support projects including school renovations, computer labs and improved agricultural infrastructure.
Thanks to our customers, we have been able to contribute tens of thousands of dollars to this small farming cooperative that supplies us with the best Colombian coffee in the world.
Papua New Guinea Tribal Coffee Project
The highlands of Papua New Guinea are home to thousands of small family farms where 70% of the tribal population is dependent on subsistence agriculture. As a cash crop, coffee offers important access to revenue for subsistence farmers. Families within the tribe will each handpick a small crop from their own “coffee garden.”
Due to poor infrastructure, including rural roads, the tribal farmers in PNG face significant challenges in order to bring their coffee to market. As a result, they often fall prey to “coyotes”—middlemen that will pick up coffee cherries, but pay the farmers well below market price. These coyotes pool the coffee from many small farms and sell them at a large profit to processing mills for exporting.
Reunion, in conjunction with Portland Roasting and Aarlie Hull of Highlands Arabicas, have developed a project to help tribal farmers earn fair value for their coffee crops by arranging legitimate roadside auctions for the crops of small family farms. Competing bids allows farmers to increase their income. Quality buyers, such as Reunion, also pay a premium for cherries that have been picked when ripe, allowing farmers to enjoy a higher reward for attention to quality.
World Coffee Research
Reunion recently became a member of World Coffee Research, a non-profit, collaborative research and development program of the global coffee industry to grow, protect, and enhance supplies of quality coffee while improving the livelihoods of the families who produce it. We’ve always acknowledged the fragility of the coffee supply chain, so we are proud to support an amazing organization that is tackling this issue head-on.http://worldcoffeeresearch.org/
Small Lot Series
We are constantly traveling the world to source interesting, new coffees from emerging origins and innovative producers.
To bring these exceptional coffees from origin, through our roastery, and into your mug, we’ve developed the Small Lot Series – a curated, monthly collection that offers the best of what specialty coffee should be: nuanced, complex, singular, yet still approachable.
Thoughtfully roasted on our Loring Smart Roaster, we’ve worked hard to craft this coffee to reach it’s full potential. Yet we continue to approach every roast as an opportunity to further uncover what each coffee has to offer.
