C2C Platform connects coffee buyers, farmers

The C2C Platform connects coffee buyers directly with farmers. [C2C PLATFORM]

The C2C Platform is connecting coffee farmers with buyers who want to purchase green beans online. An abbreviation of “crop to consumer,” C2C is the first online market where consumers can directly buy green coffee beans from farmers around the world.

Currently, coffee roasters engage in a complicated and costly process of finding the beans and contracting farms directly because coffee quality changes annually depending on the climate and seasonal conditions.

On the supply side, coffee farmers who do not engage in direct transactions with large companies have had trouble finding places to sell their products during harvest time. They struggle to get a fair price, miss opportunities and have no choice but to hand over beans to exporters at a very low price, sometimes taking a loss.

Seo Myeong-seok, who developed the C2C Platform, has been in the coffee industry for a long time and has been contemplating new trading methods that can provide innovative help to both farmers and roasters beyond the traditional ineffective channels.

The C2C Platform enables direct transactions between farmers and consumers. The site requires each product to undergo a quality evaluation by internationally certified graders who have a license from the Coffee Quality Institute, so roasters don’t have to conduct their own quality checks separately. They will know what they’re getting before they purchase it, thus saving time and money.

The C2C Platform solves the problems that many farmers and roasters currently face by offering a more reliable approach and moving away from long established sourcing practices in the coffee market. In the future, C2C plans to expand its services to low-cost transactions.

“We will continue to improve our services to make coffee trading more convenient and accessible to all customers worldwide,” Seo said. “We plan to actively launch various sales and marketing activities to get more transactions on the C2C Platform.”

BY KIM MIN-JI [kim.minji4@joongang.co.kr]