Green Coffee: America's Silent Growth Import

A $37 billion market most people never see

Industry research places the global green coffee market at roughly $37 to $38 billion, growing about 4% to 5% a year. North America accounts for roughly a third of world consumption, and the United States imports on the order of $8.6 billion of green coffee a year, by far the largest import flow of any single country. It is coffee's true volume market: everything ahead of it, every roast, every cup, passes through a green coffee contract first.

Most of that $8.6 billion is bought by a fragmented universe of roasters, from national brands to an estimated 2,000-plus craft roasters dotted across the country. Each one is a repeat buyer: green coffee is purchased continuously, several times a year, in volumes that are easy to contract and forecast. That is why green coffee reads less like a commodity business and more like a subscription business wearing work boots.

Why a dual model matters here

A company that only sells green coffee earns a thin, volume-driven margin and never touches the consumer. A company that only roasts buys its input at someone else's margin. The dual model threads the needle: the same contracted lots feed both the green trade and the roastery, so sourcing scale, origin relationships and warehouse fixed costs are shared across both profit pools.

For roasters, buying green from a company that also roasts is a natural fit: they get a supplier who speaks their own production language, who can share lots across both sides of the ledger, and who keeps a bonded inventory they can draw against. And from the seller's side, moving green lots to other roasters while roasting your own is one origin book running two ways: the same contracts, the same warehouse, the same cupping table, funded by two profit pools.