Mobjack Bay Coffee Roasters LLC

My wife, Celeste, and I started Mobjack Bay Coffee Roasters LLC in September of 2007. In our life “before coffee” I had a career in the corporate world and my wife was a professional ballet dancer. We were thrown a few curve balls, as often happens in life, and decided to make some changes. Owning my own business had always been one of my dreams and I knew it was important to be passionate about whatever it was we chose to do going forward. I also wanted to wake up in the morning knowing that I was trying to make a difference in the world… so we began our search.

Why coffee?

To make a long story short, while visiting family this summer I became interested in the coffee industry and discovered that coffee was the number one commodity in the world before increases in oil prices made crude more lucrative. It is fascinating to consider the number of hands that touch coffee before we brew a pot; and through my research it became clearly evident that the coffee bean is the cornerstone of life for people, families, and communities in many countries. I shared my new interest with Celeste, she matched my enthusiasm, and we began the process of market research and concept planning. We had found our business!

Our next step was to make sure our business had more meaning than providing the best tasting, freshly roasted coffee. But how? We wanted to tie the things we were passionate about in life to our daily activities. Since moving to Virginia, I have spent many days in the tributary waters that feed the Bay and on the Bay itself.

As an avid sportsman and outdoor enthusiast, I have taken great interest in the information provided by great organizations like the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, Menhaden Matter, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, and the Chesapeake Bay Environmental Center about the deteriorating water quality of the Bay. One day the information really hit home. My family was swimming in a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay when one of our neighbors mentioned that we shouldn’t let our baby play in the water. As it turns out, although the water looks pristine, it can have high levels of bacteria.

Celeste and I just couldn’t get it out of our minds that our children could not swim safely in this beautiful area. We already knew we shouldn’t eat the raw mussels or oysters in the creek because it wasn’t safe, which was sad enough, but this added another dimension to the Bay’s water quality issues for us. So while organizations continue to fight water quality through government legislation, we decided to focus on grass roots efforts locally to impact the Bay. We have committed ourselves, our personal time, and our money to try to make a difference.

We have pledged to allocate a percentage of our profits towards the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay. We may be starting small, but we are hoping to partner with like minded businesses and people to add momentum to this local movement. We realize that it would be self-serving to only think of our front yard, The Bay, without considering our backyard, the source of our beans. So we have structured our business as a model that also supports our interests in environmental protection. We have chosen to only sell beans that were source certified organic, while also being grown by socially responsible farms that followed Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance guidelines.

This assures us that we are thinking globally while acting locally. We have taken it one step further by purchasing a fuel efficient, environmentally sound roaster and incinerator. It burns off the smoke created while roasting to assure our impact on air quality is minimal. Finally, we have planted new trees around our home, and will do so every year, to offset the carbon footprint we create.

Does this all sound too good to be true?
Rather than worrying about that, I’ll focus my energy on making a difference. Our collective actions will ultimately speak louder than our individual words.