San Cristobal Coffee Importers

What San Cristobal Coffee Importers does

San Cristobal Coffee Importers is a privately held, vertically integrated specialty green coffee importer founded in 1993 and incorporated in 1996, headquartered in Kirkland, Washington. The company sources traceable single-origin and micro-lot coffees directly from organized smallholder farmer cooperatives in three origins: Grupo Terruño Nayarita in Nayarit, Mexico (the legacy relationship since inception); Asikana in the West Welega Zone of Ethiopia (since 2020); and Cooperativa Agraria Groupthink Yapaz (COOPAGRY) in Junín, Peru (since 2024). Origin operations and producer relationships are administered through Cafés Sustentables de México (CAFESUMEX), described as a sister company that functions as the administrative arm of Grupo Terruño Nayarita.

The company's core technology stack consists of two proprietary assets. First, FincaLab is a science-based coffee quality management system developed internally and now deployed across its three origin partnerships, used to evaluate and standardize cup quality at the farm and cooperative level. Second, TrackYourCoffee.com is a customer-facing traceability platform: every bag of coffee carries a unique QR-coded bag tag whose serial number resolves to lot-level data including country, community, producing organization, dry/wet mill, processing, certifications (e.g., organic, Bird Friendly), grading, and cup characteristics. The 2020 Ethiopia shipment was reportedly the first container exported from that country with fully traceable bar-coded bag tags.

San Cristobal sells exclusively to specialty coffee roasters via direct sales, quoting prices on a per-order basis with no published price list. The firm explicitly accommodates order sizes ranging from a single bag to multiple full containers, enabling it to serve both small craft roasters and larger commercial buyers. Beyond its three core origins, the company maintains relationships with industry partners to source coffees from Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, and Central America. Revenue is not publicly disclosed, no funding rounds are on record, and the operation is run by a small team of four — President James Kosalos, VP Devorah Zeitlin, General Manager Kenneth Davis, and Junior Trader Jacob Frankel.

Name

San Cristobal Coffee Importers

Legal name

San Cristobal Coffee Importers

Website

https://sancristocafe.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1996

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

San Cristobal Coffee Importers is a privately held, vertically integrated specialty green coffee importer that sources traceable micro-lots directly from smallholder cooperatives in Mexico, Ethiopia, and Peru, selling to specialty coffee roasters via a proprietary lot-level traceability platform.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Specialty Coffee Importing

NAICS

Coffee and Tea Manufacturing (311920)

SIC

Miscellaneous Food Preparations & Kindred Products (2090)

akta.pro primary industry

Coffee, Tea & Cocoa Trading/Wholesale (AFAIAKAD)

akta.pro secondary industry

Coffee, Tea & Cocoa Beverage Wholesale (AFAIAGAD)

Keywords

• Specialty coffee importing
• Direct trade coffee
• Coffee traceability platform
• Smallholder farmer sourcing
• Green coffee distribution

Headquarters

HQ city

Kirkland

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Supply Chain, Personnel, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D

Pricing tiers

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels1 record

Core offering

San Cristobal Coffee Importers sources, imports, and distributes traceable specialty green coffee directly from organized smallholder farmer cooperatives in Mexico (Grupo Terruño Nayarita), Ethiopia (Asikana), and Peru (COOPAGRY). Each bag is serialized with a QR-coded tag linked to the TrackYourCoffee.com platform, and lots are evaluated through the FincaLab QMS to ensure quality and origin documentation. The company supplies North American roasters in volumes ranging from a single bag to multiple containers.

Product overview

San Cristobal Coffee Importers operates as a specialty coffee importer built around two interconnected proprietary offerings: (1) its core import service — sourcing, importing, and distributing traceable specialty coffees sourced directly from small-holder farmers via producer organizations (Grupo Terruño Nayarita in Mexico, Asikana in Ethiopia, COOPAGRY in Peru), with quality management through the FincaLab system and (2) TrackYourCoffee.com — a customer-facing web platform that provides full traceability for each bag of coffee through QR-coded bag tags, linking to detailed lot information including origin, processing, certifications, and cup profiles. The company also maintains relationships with industry partners to supply coffees from Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, and Central America.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Specialty green coffee importing service Direct-trade specialty green coffee import service sourcing micro-lots from organized smallholder cooperatives in Mexico (Nayarit), Ethiopia (West Welega Zone), and Peru (Junín), with quality management through FincaLab QMS and full lot-level traceability via QR-coded bag tags linked to TrackYourCoffee.com. Sold to North American specialty roasters in volumes ranging from one bag to multiple containers.
• TrackYourCoffee.com traceability platform Cloud-based traceability platform storing and displaying microlot information for every bag of San Cristobal coffee. Consumers and roasters scan QR codes on bag tags sewn in at origin to access country of origin, community, producing organization, dry/wet mill details, coffee type, certifications including organic, grading, cup characteristics, and blend information.

Segments1 record

Ideal customer profiles1 record

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature2 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• Cafés Sustentables de México (CAFESUMEX)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerDescribed as a 'sister company' of San Cristobal Coffee Importers. Serves as the administrative arm of Grupo Terruño Nayarita, managing operations and relationships with smallholder coffee producer cooperatives in Nayarit, Mexico. Enables San Cristobal to maintain direct trade relationships with organized farmer communities.
• Grupo Terruño Nayarita (GTNay)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerOrganized group of coffee producing societies in Nayarit, Mexico. Provides the farmer network base for San Cristobal's direct trade coffee sourcing. Through CAFESUMEX, enables structured relationships between smallholder farmers and international roasters.
• TrackYourCoffee.comcoreTechnology or IntegrationTraceability platform used by San Cristobal to provide lot-level tracking information to roasters. Enables buyers to verify origin, track shipments, and access documentation about their coffee purchases from smallholder producers.

Recent moves7 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• Trabocca: Dutch specialty green coffee importer specializing in direct relationships with smallholder producers, particularly in Ethiopia and East Africa. Comparable on specialty origin focus, single-origin micro-lot offerings, and roaster-direct sales model.
• Café Imports: Minneapolis-based specialty green coffee importer offering direct-trade and traceable lots from smallholder producers across multiple origins. Comparable in size, customer base (specialty roasters), and product breadth (single-bag to container).
• Atlas Coffee Importers: Seattle-based specialty green coffee importer serving craft roasters with traceable, relationship-driven lots from multiple origins. Strong overlap with San Cristobal's Pacific Northwest base, multi-origin portfolio, and small-to-mid roaster customer segment.
• Crop to Cup Coffee Importers: Specialty coffee importer focused on direct trade relationships with smallholder farmers across Latin America and Africa. Closely mirrors San Cristobal's smallholder-equity positioning, origin diversity, and supply-chain transparency story.
• Sustainable Harvest Coffee Importers: Specialty importer with a relationship-driven, transparent supply chain model serving roasters who buy from cooperatives in Latin America and Africa. Comparable mission framing around producer equity and specialty-direct positioning.
• Nordic Approach: Norwegian specialty green coffee importer focused on transparency, quality, and direct producer relationships across multiple origins. Comparable on traceability narrative, quality-management emphasis, and specialty roaster customer base.
• Royal Coffee Importers: West-coast specialty green coffee importer with a "The Crown" grading lab and a long history of direct relationships with producer cooperatives. Comparable in offering range (single bags to containers), traceability narrative, and roaster customer base.

Broad incumbents

• Volcafe (ED&F Man): One of the world's largest coffee traders, operating across the full green coffee value chain from origin to roaster. Provides a comparable end-to-end offering but at vastly greater scale and with a much broader origin and customer portfolio.
• Neumann Kaffee Gruppe: Global coffee group with vertically integrated operations from farm-level services to green coffee export. Comparable vertical-integration philosophy but operates at orders-of-magnitude larger scale across all major origins.
• InterAmerican Coffee Imports: Large specialty-focused green coffee importer serving a broad US roaster base with both commodity and specialty offerings. Overlaps in green coffee importing to US roasters, but operates at significantly greater scale with a wider product range.

Market position

Strengths2 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Instagraminstagram.com/sancristocafe
• Xx.com/san_cristo_cafe
• Facebookfacebook.com/sancristocafe
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/sancristocafe

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about San Cristobal Coffee Importers