It contains 100 times more agriculture-supporting freshwater than all of the earth’s lakes, rivers, and wetlands combined. Ninety-five percent of the food we eat is dependent upon it. More than half of the world’s species live in it, making it our single-most biodiverse habitat, and it traps and stores more carbon than all of the planet’s plants and atmosphere put together. Yet, this incredible resource — soil — is often taken for granted.
Land development and aggressive farming practices have taken their toll on soil health globally, with monoculture agriculture (or, the practice of growing only one crop per piece of land) depleting soil’s built-in biodiversity and fueling soil depletion and exhaustion. For evidence of what this damage looks like, you only have to look to one of today’s most beloved beverages: coffee.
Huge numbers of us rely on coffee to start our days or push through our afternoons. In fact, Americans drink coffee more than any other beverage, including tap water, adding up to 517 million cups of joe poured in the U.S. every day. But despite its role in our lives, coffee farming — and coffee farmers themselves — are increasingly vulnerable.
For decades, farmers have been pushed to adopt agricultural practices that prioritize bigger coffee bean yields, faster. Now, they’re contending with the impact of those practices on soil, land, and crop health at the same time as rising temperatures and extreme weather drive further precarity. At the current rate, experts predict the amount of land suitable for growing coffee will decline 50% by 2050.
That’s a lot to take in. But the good news is that the state of coffee farming today isn’t without a solution — far from it. A movement around regenerative organic coffee is forming, cutting a clear path for both coffee farmers and consumers who hope for a future of coffee that values the longevity of people and the planet.
But what exactly is Regenerative Organic Certified® (ROC™) coffee? What makes it better for the environment, and how do its practices ensure people are paid and treated fairly? As the second-largest purveyor of ROC™ coffee in the country and the first to bring a Regenerative Organic Certified® cold brew to the market, at FedUp Foods, we’ve done our research about what sets regenerative organic coffee apart. Keep reading for a rundown of everything you need to know, including:
- What Is Regenerative Organic Certified® Coffee?
- Why Regenerative Organic Coffee Farming Matters
- What’s the Difference Between Regenerative Organic Certified® Coffee and USDA Certified Organic Coffee?
- What’s the Difference Between Regenerative Organic Certified® Coffee and Fair Trade Coffee?
- What Regenerative Organic Certified® Coffee Looks Like at FedUp Foods
What Is Regenerative Organic Certified® Coffee?
Regenerative Organic Certified® coffee is coffee that’s qualified for certification from the nonprofit Regenerative Organic Alliance (ROA) after meeting a robust set of standards — the highest in the industry — covering three regenerative farming pillars:
- Soil health and land management
- Animal welfare
- Farmer and worker fairness
Using the USDA Certified Organic standard as its baseline, ROA’s certification applies additional criteria and benchmarks across these three pillars for an approach to coffee production that seeks to regenerate soil health and the full farm ecosystem. To accomplish this, ROA — which was founded in 2017 and is made up of farmers, business leaders, and experts in soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness — tied its Regenerative Organic Certified® certification to a three-part goal:
“To promote holistic agriculture practices in an all-encompassing certification that: Increases soil organic matter over time and sequesters carbon below and above ground, which could be a tool to mitigate climate change; improves animal welfare; and provides economic stability and fairness for farmers, ranchers, and workers.”
You can read more about the specific standards needed to become Regenerative Organic Certified® in ROA’s resource library.
Why Regenerative Organic Coffee Farming Matters
Over the last 30 years, demand for coffee has surged, driving a 60% rise in coffee production. Yet, increased demand hasn’t translated to improved economic security for most coffee farmers.
About 60% of the world’s coffee is produced by smallholder coffee farmers, typically defined as those who farm five hectares of land or less. Half live in poverty and nearly a quarter live in extreme poverty, with studies showing these coffee producers pocket an average of just one percent of coffee’s retail price. That’s a nickel for every $5 cup of coffee sold in the U.S.
Facing pressure from coffee manufacturers to meet demand — while simultaneously facing rising overhead costs due to lost or damaged harvests and costly farming adaptations tied to warming temperatures — many farmers are forced to work their land more vigorously, using practices aimed at producing larger yields faster. One such practice? Full-sun farms. Most coffee trees, including Arabica trees, naturally prefer shaded environments, but in the 1970s, full-sun farms were introduced as a means of increasing production.
What resulted was deforestation — including 2.5 million acres of forests lost to full-sun coffee farming in Central America alone — that, coupled with other intensive practices like monocrop farming and the use of agrochemicals, drove a loss of soil richness and a rise in soil erosion in coffee-farming areas. Already, over 30% of the Earth's topsoil has been lost to these practices since 1970. Now, coffee farmers must often work harder to produce smaller, lower-paying harvests on land that’s stuck in a compounding cycle of depletion.
Regenerative Organic Certified® agricultural practices can help heal these ecosystems, putting much-needed nourishment and resources back into depleted land and struggling farmers. The ROC certification seeks to facilitate that in three ways:
1. Improving Soil Health
Regenerative farming practices like cover cropping, crop rotation, reduced tillage, and composting help build back up organic matter in soil and restore its structure, biodiversity, and fertility. And thanks to the role of biochar — a charcoal-like substance made from heating organic waste without oxygen, a 2,000-year-old practice — more nutrients are trapped in the soil, substantially increasing yields without sacrificing soil health. (Fun aside: The FedUp Foods team got to see biochar’s benefits in action on a recent research trip to ROC coffee farms in Colombia!)
All combined, these practices also increase soil’s ability to capture and store carbon dioxide, bolstering soil’s ability to combat rising temperatures.
2. Ensuring Animal Welfare
Regenerative practices aimed at animal welfare include: ensuring animals have access to pastures; not subjecting them to unnecessary antibiotics and hormones; and raising them in humane conditions that accommodate natural behaviors. Following these practices isn’t just good for the animals themselves; it also leads to better, more healthful animal products for people who consume them.
3. Promoting Social Fairness
To be Regenerative Organic Certified® requires protecting the health not only of land, but of the people who live on and draw their livelihoods from it. Regenerative practices in this regard include paying fair wages, providing safe working conditions, and giving support to local communities, contributing to a more equitable food system.
In the world of coffee production, regenerative organic farming means doing coffee the right way, with attention paid to the health of the soil, the well-being of the farmers harvesting the beans, and every step of the process in between.
“The coffee industry has long been challenged by unsustainable farming practices that deplete soil health and strain the communities that rely on it. By prioritizing Regenerative Organic Certified® beans, we’re not just producing better coffee — we’re actively supporting farming practices that restore ecosystems, improve soil health, and ensure fair treatment for farmers. This approach is vital to creating a more sustainable future for coffee production.”
– Julie McGuire, Sourcing Specialist at FedUp Foods
What’s the Difference Between Regenerative Organic Certified® Coffee and USDA Certified Organic Coffee?
Mainly, the difference has to do with the scope and depth of standards required by each.
The USDA Certified Organic certification deals largely with avoiding synthetic chemicals, pesticides, and GMOs; requiring farmers to use organic fertilizers; maintaining soil and water quality; and preventing contamination.
Regenerative Organic Certified® coffee uses the USDA Certified Organic standard as its baseline while expanding its scope of criteria to go much farther, specifically in the realms of soil health, animal welfare, and social fairness. It includes direct requirements for the well-being of workers and addresses issues, like fair wages and safe working conditions, that aren’t included within the USDA Organic certification.
In this way, the ROC certification aims to restore health and vitality to depleted environments and all the species that rely on them, creating more resilient ecosystems and equitable food systems for generations to come.
What’s the Difference Between Regenerative Organic Certified® Coffee and Fair Trade Coffee?
Both the Regenerative Organic Certified® and Fair Trade certifications are aimed at promoting social equity, environmental stewardship, and economic resilience in food systems, including through fair, ethical trade and employment practices and transparency and traceability in the supply chain. The main differences come down to the exact criteria used to determine fairness for farmers and workers, as well as each certification’s approach to issues of agriculture and the environment.
To guarantee a fair price paid to farmers and other producers, ROC encourages direct purchasing agreements while Fair Trade focuses on “fair and transparent negotiations.” Fair Trade USA also requires that worker payments “meet or exceed” local legal minimum wages, defines a “floor price” for the minimum amount farmers can be paid for a crop regardless of market changes, and requires Fair Trade producers to invest funds in community development projects.
ROC™, meanwhile, uses a multi-step calculation to determine its required living wages, defining a living wage as: “A combination of wages and benefits that can provide for food, water, housing, education, health care, transport, clothing, and other essential needs, plus a 10% allowance for unexpected events and/or savings.” All ROC™ farms are required to be certified to a fair trade standard.
As far as agricultural practices go, Fair Trade encourages environmental stewardship. But it does so in a less specific and rigorous way compared to ROC, which prioritizes advanced environmental impact and regenerative practices alongside fair social and economic conditions. Fair Trade, meanwhile, focuses a bit more on social and economic standards specifically.
What Regenerative Organic Certified® Coffee Looks Like at FedUp Foods
At FedUp Foods, we know that every decision we make today will affect generations of farmers, their children, and the countless other families who are involved in the coffee supply chain. We believe the future of coffee is in our hands, and that saving it can only be done by sourcing and expertly roasting Regenerative Organic Certified® coffee.
That’s why we’ve partnered with Heirloom Coffee Roasters, the premiere Regenerative Organic Certified® coffee brand, to be our main coffee supplier. And it’s why, with their help, we’re bringing the first Regenerative Organic Certified® cold brew to the market.
Heirloom has made it their mission to invest in farmers, farmworkers, and the land that produces their award-winning coffee beans, including through the Heirloom Regenerative Coffee Research lab. Founded in 2023, it’s the largest roasting lab dedicated to regenerative coffee, doubling as a community space for regenerative farmers. And outside of the roasting lab, through practices like crop rotation, minimal soil disturbance, vegetative cover, and composting, they’re making coffees that are better for the planet and better for the people who produce them.
At FedUp Foods, we’re putting these superior-quality beans to good use. Our new cold brew — which uses an innovative, proprietary brewing method to solve for a consumer flavor gap identified by the UC Davis Coffee Research Center — brings peak flavor out of each of the Regenerative Organic Certified® Arabica beans it’s brewed from.
“We've always believed that innovation can go hand in hand with sustainability. This cold brew is a perfect example of that ethos—it’s crafted with care, using regenerative ingredients, while delivering a superior taste that we know our customers will love. It’s coffee done the right way, with attention to the health of the soil, the well-being of the farmers harvesting the beans, and every step of the process in between.”
— Jeannine Buscher, Executive Vice President of Innovation and Co-Founder of FedUp Foods
But cold brew isn’t Fedup Foods’ first foray into the regenerative ingredients world. All the high-quality sugar used in our lineup of delicious functional beverages is regenerative, sourced from Global Organics and the Natíve Green Cane Project, the first sugar producer certified by the Regenerative Organic Alliance.
As the largest sustainable agriculture project in the world, they’ve developed a closed-loop sugarcane process that prioritizes ecosystem health over crop yield. The impact is remarkable, with numbers that speak for themselves:
- A 100% carbon neutral growth and shipping process, from the fields to our warehouses in North America and Europe
- 47,000 tons of CO2 eliminated from the atmosphere
- 49+ endangered species discovered within the sugarcane fields
- 1,000,000+ trees planted, creating 11,000 acres of restored land
- Higher resistance to drought and pest damage
- 23 times the biodiversity of conventional fields, including many rare species
FedUp Foods also works with a Fair Trade Certified tea supplier, Teatulia, and we’ve seen firsthand the way regenerative practices have helped them preserve biodiversity and restore degraded lands. We’ve asked other partners — like our dual-source sugar and ginger suppliers — to achieve regenerative certification, as well. They’ve made it happen, and that means that, together, we’re contributing to a food system that replenishes what’s been taken and goes further to repair, nourish, and make things continually better.
Excited to dive deeper and learn more about coffee’s regenerative future? Find more information about regenerative coffee farming practices.
