Better Means: Redefine Coffee Competitions

We compete on packaging design, bid against each other with SCA scores and origin stories. And underneath — we fight on price, we dump, we copy blend recipes and plagiarize brands, we poach producer relationships, we greenwash and pointwash.

Competition is rewarded. And I don't just mean the measurable gains the winner walks away with. I mean something broader: the ethos of rivalry itself is glorified and reproduced by the industry.

Coffee has no shortage of competitions and championships. They're popular — and in their own way, they shape the industry, sometimes even consumer preferences. But the positive side runs up against real consequences for coffee people and the industry as a whole: by celebrating the ethos of competition, these events reinforce the logic of the competitive system. Maybe they even drive it forward.

A few made-up examples.

A barista wins a prestigious competition using coffee from a particular farmer — suddenly that farmer has visibility and room to grow. So the farmer starts buying coffee berries from anonymous neighbors at prices that work for him, processing it all under his own name. "He scaled up." Prices go up. He polarizes his region. Customers come to him. He earns on a very high margin.

A roaster wins a competition. The roastery gets popular, production grows, so does the headcount. The old staff and the new ones — everyone except the owner — see none of the success. They ask for a raise. They're told there's nothing to give.

A prominent judge has a favorite. And people he doesn't particularly want to see win. He doesn't have to say it out loud. The local judges read the room and don't want to step out of line. The competition becomes not just predictable, but rigged.

A competitor finishes second. Or fourth. Either way, everyone forgets about them quickly.

A competitor finishes last. Their coffee was too cheap — though still expensive for them. They had no access to the sponsor's high-end grinder and espresso machine, no budget for consultations with a former champion or former judge. They become a joke.

Sure, some competitions demand serious investment to prepare for. Others are more inclusive. All of them carry the risk of bias, and their rules are often unclear — or, on the contrary, so specific they end up favoring certain techniques, coffees, countries of origin, equipment.

Very rarely are they built around cooperation and collective effort. When they are, it's genuinely worth noticing.

Don't read the value of Cooperation as The Endeavour standing against competitions for baristas and other coffee people. That's not what this is. It just means we won't look away from the truth of what they are — the misunderstandings, the consequences, the direct and indirect problems they create.