November 15, 2025 • 11 mins
Have you noticed your morning (or afternoon) coffee is getting more expensive? Perhaps the beans you really like at the store are hitting your wallet, too. Roasters here in New England and around the country are struggling with the rising cost of beans, which is hitting customers in the cup. Derek Anderson, the owner of Speedwell Coffee in Plymouth, joins Nichole this week to talk about their experience, the factors playing into this developing situation, and what you, the coffee lover, should expect.
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England
Weekend where each week right here we come together we
talk about all the topics important to you and the
place where you live. Thanks for joining us again this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. Now, of course, there are plenty of
jokes about people needing their coffee. Oh, don't talk to
me till I've had my coffee, blah blah. I get that.
(00:28):
I am the same way. I need my coffee to
exist every day, it seems, but these jokes are actually
rooted in truth. Here in the US alone, we consume
about three and a half billion pounds of coffee a year.
If we do the math here, that works out to
about nine or ten pounds of coffee per person. When
it comes to cups, the National Coffee Association saying, on average,
(00:49):
we're drinking about three a day. So then when you
start to hear stories about those coffee beans you like
getting pricier, maybe you've noticed your coffee run, be it
a latte or drip coffee, as getting a bit more expensive.
You might be wondering, well, why what's going on here?
I decided to check in with a local roaster to
break down the economics of what is driving these higher prices.
(01:11):
Derek Anderson is the owner of Speedwell Coffee that's based
in Plymouth. Derek, it is great to have you here
on the show, and before we get into the financials,
tell us a bit more first about speed Well.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I got into coffee about twenty five years ago, got
into the roasting side, and then started working for myself
from two thousand and four helping a cafe with my
brother and kind of got into the retail side of
things while also roasting. And then after about fight yeers
of that, decided that just because of my family situation
starting to have young kids, was married, and I really
(01:42):
loved coffee and want to stay with us, I decided
to kind of get back into the host of focus
on that, so I started speed Well in two thousand
and eight. Really just sort of, you know, I've always
wanted to work for myself. It's kind of always done
in my blood, and loved coffee and it seems like
the natural kind of progression to kind of get back
into roasting and kind of just started myself this kind
of branched out a few wholesale accounts and just started
to build it slowly from from then in two thousand
(02:03):
and eight.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, Like roasting coffee, I think is not an easy process.
That's why I choose to drink it. And people like
you are thankfully the ones who are roasting it. So
tell us a little bit about your process, Like what's
it like to make the cup of coffee that we
then can buy from you?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Sure? Yeah, I mean it is definitely more science than art. Really,
it's a little bit about sort of experimentation. But once
you have experience with coffees, really you're kind of applying
your past experience to the new lot of coffee determine
how you want to roast it. It's really just an
application of heat and air and time and just figuring
(02:41):
out sort of how to apply all those factors to
get the coffee to taste the best. Most people are surprised,
like how sure it takes the roast coffee? Like, we're
generally most of our roasts are like nine and a
half to ten and a half minutes, so fairly quick. Yeah,
generally average go four roast per hour on our machine,
and that's pretty standard across the endre's I would say,
but you know it's any longer. I mean, if you
(03:03):
go for longer roation, more baking the coffee, you'll can
of mute a lot of the flavors that you want
to enhance. So you're really trying to sort of through
the roasting process develop the coffee so that it has
maximum sweetness depending on the type of coffee and the worlds,
but really for us, when we really trying to maximize
sweetness and kind of clarity of the coffee so that
it tastes it's really enjoyable, leaves your palate really clean.
(03:26):
It doesn't require a lot of sugar or creamery like that,
so it's naturally sweet, and really trying to develop that
in the coffee.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, in different beans, if I remember correctly, from different
countries and parts of the world and growing experiences give
you that different sort of flavor or roast that you're
looking for. Where do you tend to source your beans
from around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
So we buy from many different origins, some a lot
more than others. Like our core coffees come from Brazil, Colombia,
El Salvador, Guatemala. You know, those are kind of like
our core small coffees, Okay, And we also source coffee
from East Africa, like Kenya, Ethiopia, and those tend to
(04:06):
be much smaller. We sell a lot of those retail,
but not as many of those wholesales, so we're selling
more of those like online director consumer, but as far
as like our overall purchasing their much smaller amounts. Really,
you know, Brazil represents quite a large part of our
coffee Columbia as well, and those are the largest prducers
in the world, you know. There they produce high quantities
that have high quality coffee, so there's kind of a
(04:28):
natural fit for us well.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
And it's one of the main countries too where you're
seeing these big tariffs, And I'd love to know how
that's been impacting over the past few weeks and months,
how that's been impacting your not just sourcing of the beans,
but also the production of the beans and so on
and so forth.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
What's your experience been, Yes, definitely. So I've been in
coffee and buying coffees in two thousand and four, so
over twenty years, and this is definitely the most challenging
year ever for buying coffee. It started last November with
there was sort of weather conditions in Brazil caused the
(05:03):
market coffee market, the commodity's market to rise quite a
bit starting last November or so, and that was you know,
through January of last year. February last year reached record highs.
So the level of the market itself was extremely high.
And again that was because of supply issues, because of
production quantity excuse me volume in Brazil, and because of that,
(05:24):
the market was very high. And then tariff started beginning
in April, and that just complicated things a lot more
and really like and then since the Brazil tariffs went
into effect in August, that's really the market at that
point was falling, but that caused the market to really
spike and has really caused short term a lot of
short term disruption in the United States for coffee supply,
Like the inventory levels are really low, a lot of
(05:46):
people turn into alternative sources of coffee, so it's causing
a shortage really across the board and spiking briceive spike dramatically,
so our cost of goods are way up unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, are you able to absorb that or do you
have to pass it on right now?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
No, we're definitely passing on. We're absorbing as much of
it as we can, but we do have to pass
a love but I mean our cost of goods sold
has increased forty to thirty percent ons o our cut coffee,
So it's really a dramatic effect on our bottom line.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, I was going to ask, I mean, is what
is it looking like for the next few months for
you here? Are you going to Are you okay to
keep going? Or how is this impacting your bottom line?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah? For sure. I mean our balance sheet was in
really good shade going into the year. Thankfully, we were
in a good position. We weren't leveraged at all. We
actually own our own building that that we're in, so
stability wise, we're in a good spot. It's just been
very challenging, Like it's caused a lot of hesitation from
my perspective on hiring, on expanding, doing things of that nature.
It's really hard to sort of invest in what we're
(06:43):
doing kind of beyond the short term because we don't
know what the rules are going to be, with the
playing field is going to be, you know, as far
as like we don't really know what stay situation is
going to be with the cost of our goods, which
is the most critical thing.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It's not like you can just switch things up and
say I'm just not going to buy from Brazil anymore,
you know, because that completely changes your whole roast, It
completely changes your entire brand.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, we probably will have to start doing that. Like,
so we're buying We've been buying from the same estate
in Brazil through an importer for about twelve years. We've
had a very consistent supply of that coffee. But currently,
like we probably have enough supply through the end of January,
and then after that, we're not sure it's going to happen.
Like if the terrif is still on, the importer's not
buying the coffee, so then we'll have to definitely pivot
(07:25):
to other source of coffee for sure. Like there is
Brazil in the country now, not much of it, but
it's super expensive and it's like not really worth the
price with the quality, Like the quality of that coffee
is not great. I mean, I mean the major problem
is that Brazil provides a third of the coffee United
States generally, you know, so you have to replace that
with something because people are going to still drink coffee.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, the demand is very much there. This newsroom alone,
I think would probably take up a good portion of
that demand being honest. But yeah, other local roasters, I'm
sure you talk with all of them around Massachusetts or
at least in our part of the woods. What are
you hearing from them too?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Same thing? You know, it's very a hard year for
sure so far. It's not as far as bottom line,
but just I mean from my perspective too, it's really
like it's not even just a price that we're pending,
but the amount of time that I have to spend
sort like normally we source our coffees six months twelve
months in advance, like we're signing contracts and really sort
of knowing what are it's really a very consistent demand
(08:20):
for coffee, so we can project out what we need
and really kind of set up our contracts going out
quite a ways. But right now, the amount of resource
I have to spend just to sort of source our coffees,
be real conscious of price and creating value for our
We're not charging it at extremely high price for our coffee.
You can still stay competitive. Like the amount of resources
of my time spend doing that is really incredible, Like
(08:42):
way more than I want to be doing that. You know,
it creates just a lot of kind of a high
stress environment for buying coffee, hard conditions, and really like
my focus is still buying really good coffee, and right
now that's just hard to do.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
My goodness, all right, Well, what should people know right
now when it comes to buying not just locally roasted
coffee like yours? Of course yours is a priority, but
in general, what should people know about the state of
coffee in America right now?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's a big question.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, I know, I.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Would think, you know, I would say, you know, there's
alternatives for coffee. Like, if I would, I would encourage
people to still support their local roasters if they can,
you know, if it's budget allows. I know, a lot
of roasters in our position are doing their best to
keep prices as low as they can and competitive as
they can, and they're still trying to maintain quality. For us,
(09:32):
We're still trying to buy the same exact estates and
farms that we've always worked with, but it becomes more challenging.
So I would say, you know, it's it seems like
the short term is not going to get better. It
seems like, hopefully, you know, maybe second quarter next year
it's going to look a lot better. So in the
short term, I think it's going to be getting more
expensive even like the prices we're buying our coffee that's
landing in January very expensive right now, So I think
(09:55):
it's it's not going away in the short term. So
you know, I would encourage people to hopefully still support
the local roasters with the support, keep their money locally,
and hopefully in the second quarter it'll get better.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
If people want to come and check out what you've
got to offer, tell us about where they can find you,
and how they can buy your coffee if they want it.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, best way right on line sego coffee dot com.
You can order single bags, you can orn multile bags,
you can subscribe to weekly deliveries things like that, but
really just go online support us. So then we also
have a list of books that we sell to so
you can support our cut customers out in the greater
Boston area as well.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Okay, cool, and you're in Plymouth, right, do you have
a cafe or something? Can people stop buy?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So we do have a physical location. It's not a cafe,
so we don't serve coffee, but you can buy bags
of coffee as you can come here and buy a
bag of coffee to your house, or two bags of
coffee to your house. We don't serve drinks of coffee,
but happy that people come in during during the week
and buy bags of coffee.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
All right, great, well, Derek. I appreciate the insight, the education.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
All right, thanks to God. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Have a good day, have a safe and healthy weekend.
Please join me again next week for another edition of
the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England
Weekend where each week right here we come together we
talk about all the topics important to you and the
place where you live. Thanks for joining us again this week.
I'm Nicole Davis. Now, of course, there are plenty of
jokes about people needing their coffee. Oh, don't talk to
me till I've had my coffee, blah blah. I get that.
(00:28):
I am the same way. I need my coffee to
exist every day, it seems, but these jokes are actually
rooted in truth. Here in the US alone, we consume
about three and a half billion pounds of coffee a year.
If we do the math here, that works out to
about nine or ten pounds of coffee per person. When
it comes to cups, the National Coffee Association saying, on average,
(00:49):
we're drinking about three a day. So then when you
start to hear stories about those coffee beans you like
getting pricier, maybe you've noticed your coffee run, be it
a latte or drip coffee, as getting a bit more expensive.
You might be wondering, well, why what's going on here?
I decided to check in with a local roaster to
break down the economics of what is driving these higher prices.
(01:11):
Derek Anderson is the owner of Speedwell Coffee that's based
in Plymouth. Derek, it is great to have you here
on the show, and before we get into the financials,
tell us a bit more first about speed Well.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I got into coffee about twenty five years ago, got
into the roasting side, and then started working for myself
from two thousand and four helping a cafe with my
brother and kind of got into the retail side of
things while also roasting. And then after about fight yeers
of that, decided that just because of my family situation
starting to have young kids, was married, and I really
(01:42):
loved coffee and want to stay with us, I decided
to kind of get back into the host of focus
on that, so I started speed Well in two thousand
and eight. Really just sort of, you know, I've always
wanted to work for myself. It's kind of always done
in my blood, and loved coffee and it seems like
the natural kind of progression to kind of get back
into roasting and kind of just started myself this kind
of branched out a few wholesale accounts and just started
to build it slowly from from then in two thousand
(02:03):
and eight.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Yeah, Like roasting coffee, I think is not an easy process.
That's why I choose to drink it. And people like
you are thankfully the ones who are roasting it. So
tell us a little bit about your process, Like what's
it like to make the cup of coffee that we
then can buy from you?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Sure? Yeah, I mean it is definitely more science than art. Really,
it's a little bit about sort of experimentation. But once
you have experience with coffees, really you're kind of applying
your past experience to the new lot of coffee determine
how you want to roast it. It's really just an
application of heat and air and time and just figuring
(02:41):
out sort of how to apply all those factors to
get the coffee to taste the best. Most people are surprised,
like how sure it takes the roast coffee? Like, we're
generally most of our roasts are like nine and a
half to ten and a half minutes, so fairly quick. Yeah,
generally average go four roast per hour on our machine,
and that's pretty standard across the endre's I would say,
but you know it's any longer. I mean, if you
(03:03):
go for longer roation, more baking the coffee, you'll can
of mute a lot of the flavors that you want
to enhance. So you're really trying to sort of through
the roasting process develop the coffee so that it has
maximum sweetness depending on the type of coffee and the worlds,
but really for us, when we really trying to maximize
sweetness and kind of clarity of the coffee so that
it tastes it's really enjoyable, leaves your palate really clean.
(03:26):
It doesn't require a lot of sugar or creamery like that,
so it's naturally sweet, and really trying to develop that
in the coffee.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Well, in different beans, if I remember correctly, from different
countries and parts of the world and growing experiences give
you that different sort of flavor or roast that you're
looking for. Where do you tend to source your beans
from around the world.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
So we buy from many different origins, some a lot
more than others. Like our core coffees come from Brazil, Colombia,
El Salvador, Guatemala. You know, those are kind of like
our core small coffees, Okay, And we also source coffee
from East Africa, like Kenya, Ethiopia, and those tend to
(04:06):
be much smaller. We sell a lot of those retail,
but not as many of those wholesales, so we're selling
more of those like online director consumer, but as far
as like our overall purchasing their much smaller amounts. Really,
you know, Brazil represents quite a large part of our
coffee Columbia as well, and those are the largest prducers
in the world, you know. There they produce high quantities
that have high quality coffee, so there's kind of a
(04:28):
natural fit for us well.
Speaker 1 (04:29):
And it's one of the main countries too where you're
seeing these big tariffs, And I'd love to know how
that's been impacting over the past few weeks and months,
how that's been impacting your not just sourcing of the beans,
but also the production of the beans and so on
and so forth.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
What's your experience been, Yes, definitely. So I've been in
coffee and buying coffees in two thousand and four, so
over twenty years, and this is definitely the most challenging
year ever for buying coffee. It started last November with
there was sort of weather conditions in Brazil caused the
(05:03):
market coffee market, the commodity's market to rise quite a
bit starting last November or so, and that was you know,
through January of last year. February last year reached record highs.
So the level of the market itself was extremely high.
And again that was because of supply issues, because of
production quantity excuse me volume in Brazil, and because of that,
(05:24):
the market was very high. And then tariff started beginning
in April, and that just complicated things a lot more
and really like and then since the Brazil tariffs went
into effect in August, that's really the market at that
point was falling, but that caused the market to really
spike and has really caused short term a lot of
short term disruption in the United States for coffee supply,
Like the inventory levels are really low, a lot of
(05:46):
people turn into alternative sources of coffee, so it's causing
a shortage really across the board and spiking briceive spike dramatically,
so our cost of goods are way up unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, are you able to absorb that or do you
have to pass it on right now?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
No, we're definitely passing on. We're absorbing as much of
it as we can, but we do have to pass
a love but I mean our cost of goods sold
has increased forty to thirty percent ons o our cut coffee,
So it's really a dramatic effect on our bottom line.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Well, I was going to ask, I mean, is what
is it looking like for the next few months for
you here? Are you going to Are you okay to
keep going? Or how is this impacting your bottom line?
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah? For sure. I mean our balance sheet was in
really good shade going into the year. Thankfully, we were
in a good position. We weren't leveraged at all. We
actually own our own building that that we're in, so
stability wise, we're in a good spot. It's just been
very challenging, Like it's caused a lot of hesitation from
my perspective on hiring, on expanding, doing things of that nature.
It's really hard to sort of invest in what we're
(06:43):
doing kind of beyond the short term because we don't
know what the rules are going to be, with the
playing field is going to be, you know, as far
as like we don't really know what stay situation is
going to be with the cost of our goods, which
is the most critical thing.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
It's not like you can just switch things up and
say I'm just not going to buy from Brazil anymore,
you know, because that completely changes your whole roast, It
completely changes your entire brand.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Yeah, we probably will have to start doing that. Like,
so we're buying We've been buying from the same estate
in Brazil through an importer for about twelve years. We've
had a very consistent supply of that coffee. But currently,
like we probably have enough supply through the end of January,
and then after that, we're not sure it's going to happen.
Like if the terrif is still on, the importer's not
buying the coffee, so then we'll have to definitely pivot
(07:25):
to other source of coffee for sure. Like there is
Brazil in the country now, not much of it, but
it's super expensive and it's like not really worth the
price with the quality, Like the quality of that coffee
is not great. I mean, I mean the major problem
is that Brazil provides a third of the coffee United
States generally, you know, so you have to replace that
with something because people are going to still drink coffee.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, the demand is very much there. This newsroom alone,
I think would probably take up a good portion of
that demand being honest. But yeah, other local roasters, I'm
sure you talk with all of them around Massachusetts or
at least in our part of the woods. What are
you hearing from them too?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Same thing? You know, it's very a hard year for
sure so far. It's not as far as bottom line,
but just I mean from my perspective too, it's really
like it's not even just a price that we're pending,
but the amount of time that I have to spend
sort like normally we source our coffees six months twelve
months in advance, like we're signing contracts and really sort
of knowing what are it's really a very consistent demand
(08:20):
for coffee, so we can project out what we need
and really kind of set up our contracts going out
quite a ways. But right now, the amount of resource
I have to spend just to sort of source our coffees,
be real conscious of price and creating value for our
We're not charging it at extremely high price for our coffee.
You can still stay competitive. Like the amount of resources
of my time spend doing that is really incredible, Like
(08:42):
way more than I want to be doing that. You know,
it creates just a lot of kind of a high
stress environment for buying coffee, hard conditions, and really like
my focus is still buying really good coffee, and right
now that's just hard to do.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
My goodness, all right, Well, what should people know right
now when it comes to buying not just locally roasted
coffee like yours? Of course yours is a priority, but
in general, what should people know about the state of
coffee in America right now?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
That's a big question.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah, I know, I.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Would think, you know, I would say, you know, there's
alternatives for coffee. Like, if I would, I would encourage
people to still support their local roasters if they can,
you know, if it's budget allows. I know, a lot
of roasters in our position are doing their best to
keep prices as low as they can and competitive as
they can, and they're still trying to maintain quality. For us,
(09:32):
We're still trying to buy the same exact estates and
farms that we've always worked with, but it becomes more challenging.
So I would say, you know, it's it seems like
the short term is not going to get better. It
seems like, hopefully, you know, maybe second quarter next year
it's going to look a lot better. So in the
short term, I think it's going to be getting more
expensive even like the prices we're buying our coffee that's
landing in January very expensive right now, So I think
(09:55):
it's it's not going away in the short term. So
you know, I would encourage people to hopefully still support
the local roasters with the support, keep their money locally,
and hopefully in the second quarter it'll get better.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
If people want to come and check out what you've
got to offer, tell us about where they can find you,
and how they can buy your coffee if they want it.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah, best way right on line sego coffee dot com.
You can order single bags, you can orn multile bags,
you can subscribe to weekly deliveries things like that, but
really just go online support us. So then we also
have a list of books that we sell to so
you can support our cut customers out in the greater
Boston area as well.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Okay, cool, and you're in Plymouth, right, do you have
a cafe or something? Can people stop buy?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So we do have a physical location. It's not a cafe,
so we don't serve coffee, but you can buy bags
of coffee as you can come here and buy a
bag of coffee to your house, or two bags of
coffee to your house. We don't serve drinks of coffee,
but happy that people come in during during the week
and buy bags of coffee.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
All right, great, well, Derek. I appreciate the insight, the education.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
All right, thanks to God. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Have a good day, have a safe and healthy weekend.
Please join me again next week for another edition of
the show. I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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