Who’s Your Farmer: Conscious Cup Coffee Roasters

Duke’s recently reached out to our local farmers and producers to participate in a project that will highlight their contributions to our local food system. By sharing their stories and insights, we hope to raise awareness of our local small businesses and spark conversations about the importance of sustainable practices.

“Mass cheap food production is terrible for our bodies, minds and the environment. I think that we need to slow down and focus on food as an opportunity to root us with nature and each other.”

Michael Shipley

Your Name

Michael Shipley

Your Business Name

Conscious Cup Coffee Roasters

What product(s) does your business produce?

Specialty Coffee

Where is your business located?

Crystal Lake, IL with cafes in the NW Suburbs.

Where can consumers find your products?

At our cafes, our wholesale partners, and online www.conscioiuscup.com

What do you see as major problems with our current food system?

Mass cheap food production is terrible for our bodies, minds and the environment. I think that we need to slow down and focus on food as an opportunity to root us with nature and each other.

How does your product show us how our food system could be better?

Coffee is a great example of how our values affect the things that we value. Specialty coffee is all about improving lives by focusing on quality and transparency. In our industry farmers and producers are incentivized to improve their coffees because they are treated like an important part of the value chain. I think that the growth of specialty coffee is an example of a commodity product that was successfully made craft by the collaborative effort of producers, specialty importers, and coffee roasters. It's worth being optimistic about the growth of specialty sections in other markets like meat, dairy and produce.

What would you say to a young person looking to enter your field?

It is a great time to get into coffee. The market continues to grow and there is an appetite for retail cafes where people can congregate. Remote work and the way that we engage with our neighbors lends itself to a day-time cafe style business taking advantage. The specialty coffee industry is so interesting; from cultivation and farming techniques, the science of processing, the economics of coffee-growing regions and entrepreneurial opportunities at production level, to the roasting, brewing and serving of the drink-- any young person interested in coffee has a lot to think about.

How do you balance the pursuit of profit with the responsibility to your community and the environment?

I think that they have to go hand in hand. I think that for all independent businesses the margin of profit can be significantly lower than our corporate competition, regardless of the increased cost of buying higher quality and/or ethically sourced products. This makes growing and reinvesting hard. But it's through that growth the business can buy more of these great ethical products, hire more people in the community, increase wages, and take advantage of economies of scale (without sacrificing quality or ethics). It's important before anything else that the operation is or can be quickly sustainable for the operators and managers. Healthy profit allows continued growth and opportunity and incentivize the best people in the organization to keep pushing forward. I believe that there is immense social and personal value in being a business that cares about the environment, the community of producers, employees, customers and the health and well-being of it's neighbors. If you are a brand that represents those values and communicates that to your customers, you will generate loyalty, you can foster growth and receive both those warm feelings and a healthy margin.

Who is your favorite artist and why?

Oh man, good question. Lately and often I go back to Beck. I love his pop albums but his more retrospective slower albums, like Mutations back in the day or Colors from a few years back really get me. He's a really impressive conductor of modern electrical sound. I also have two little girls and a boy, so I'm not ashamed to admit I'm cool with Miss Swift and the Moana soundtrack too.

Any further comments or additions?

We love working with Dukes. :) You guys are the gold standard for care and craft.