"Our Goal Was To Provide You With Good Coffee... But We Didn't Want It To Stop There" | Interview With Our Founder, Wendall Yoder

Hi, my name is Wendall Yoder, I’m the founder of Impact Coffee Company.

Impact Coffee was founded in October of 2023. Impact Coffee Company is a specialty coffee company, small-batch roasted coffee, focused on serving our customers great coffees, building meaningful relationships with coffee producers, and then through that, our hope is that we’re impacting our community here in Mount Vernon Ohio as well as communities across the world—especially the coffee communities where coffee is being grown and harvested and produced, so that we’re having a positive impact on all of those people involved as well.

So, our mission statement is “when you impact your community, you impact the world.” That obviously came out of our name, Impact Coffee Company. Our goal when we were trying to decide on a name as well as kind of what our long term mission and goal was for the company was just that idea of… we want to make sure that we’re positively impacting our community where we’re at, but that we’re not just so inward focused that that’s all we’re focusing on, but that we want that impact to have a ripple effect out into the rest of the world. And especially thinking about the communities where the coffee is grown and produced, that we’re not forgetting about them when we’re working with our coffee and when we’re thinking about how we’re producing coffee and how we’re selling it to our customers—that we’re keeping everybody involved and hopefully impacting everybody well. 

So when we were in the process of determining our goals and our mission, my faith played into that a lot, because we believe the ultimate impact that we want to have on people is we want them to hear the gospel—we want them to hear the good news of Jesus. And we think that—I personally think that—coffee is a great way to do that, because there is a lot of conversations that happen around coffee, whether it’s in our coffee shops, or whether it’s just over a cup of coffee with a friend, or whether we’re buying coffee from a community in Honduras or Columbia, wherever it is, that we’re able to use that as a catalyst to start those conversations and build those relationships that hopefully ultimately lead to gospel conversations and gospel impact on those communities. 

So I think the idea first started to pursue opening a coffee company… it was probably sometime in early 2022. I’d been in coffee for a while, working behind the bar as a barista, so just thinking about what the next steps were for us as a company, but also for me in the coffee industry, in order to be able to continue to grow and expand in that. And it just seemed like starting to roast our own coffee, opening our own coffee roasting company, was just the logical next step for that. And it was also part of the pursuing of “how do we give our customers the best experience?” and always continuing to grow in that experience, and the products that we’re providing. And so it was just that process of thinking through those things, and then, logically—are we able to do this?

So, there is definitely a process behind opening a coffee company. It was a longer process than I think I originally anticipated. Like I said, I started thinking about it in spring of 2022. We launched finally in October of 2023—so obviously a span of time in there where there were a lot of things that needed to happen for us to launch. There are a lot of permits that need to be had, there’s inspections, there’s training and me learning how to roast coffee well, to make sure that when we launched, we were proud of the product that we were presenting to our clients. And then also just figuring out what kind of roaster you want to use, and what type of roaster, what type of coffees are we going to be presenting… and so just working through all of those things. A lot of decisions that need to be made. And finally just taking the step of just we’re stepping out in faith. We’re going with this roaster, we are starting with these origins, and working through that and just taking that step and going with it. 

Obviously I’m still continuing to grow in my knowledge, in my skills, and all of those things surrounding coffee. And something that just… the more that I’m in the coffee industry that I always come back to is—I just love the community that surrounds coffee. Whether it’s serving coffee from behind the bar to customers, or it’s having conversations with the producers and the farmers, or getting to have a conversation with an importer, or just hearing other people talk about their experiences in coffee, and it’s just—there’s a tight bond in that community of just a continually learning and growing and “how do we do this better” and how do we make sure that we’re not leaving anybody out. I think that’s a big conversation that’s been happening in the last couple years for sure, that how do we make sure that everybody in this industry is being treated well. Whether it’s being able to help baristas pursue long-term careers in coffee, or whether it’s making sure the farmers and the producers and their employees are being able to make a living wage. And then also just ensuring that we’re providing coffee that is healthy, and that it’s grown well, and that we’re producing it the best that we can for our customers, and there’s just a lot of conversations that happen around coffee and I think that’s how we continue to grow as people, that’s how we continue to grow in this industry, and I just absolutely love that part of it.

So we officially launched Impact in October of 2023. Our first step was obviously deciding what coffees were going to be our first offerings, and we started with bringing those offerings into North Main Cafe with the coffees we were serving there with our espresso, our drip coffees, and so making sure that we had that lineup set and ready to go, and from there we did a launch party. We basically brought in a bunch of family and friends, brewed a bunch of coffee, and kind of presented our mission and goals to them, and just let them drink coffee. And so that gave us good feedback on our coffee, but also gave us the chance to present who we are as a company and where we wanted to go with it to the people surrounding us. And then from there it was simply bringing it into North Main and making sure that it was received well by our customers there, and then from there just continuing to develop new coffees, and continue to grow in the offerings that we’ve been providing over the past couple years now. 

The name Impact Coffee Company just came out of some conversations surrounding what we wanted our coffee company to be. And when thinking about it, we knew we wanted to provide good coffee, but we didn’t want it to stop there. And it was just as simple as we want to make an impact in our local community, we want to make an impact on our world. And so it was just—we’re going to keep it simple and we’re going to name it Impact Coffee Company, so that every time I’m roasting and I’m putting that label on a bag, that is in front of my face, and I’m remembering why we started the company in the first place, but also that way every time it goes in front of our customers, that they’re seeing that as well, and that also provides an opportunity for us to explain why we’re serving the coffee that we do, and who we are as a company, and so we wanted to keep it simple. Something that is easy to remember, but also that it was just right there—that we’re constantly looking to make a positive impact. 

So I think some of the hardest things in this process have been one—being confident in you know, coming into an industry that is well established and is constantly changing too, is just having the confidence to continue to pursue what I love in the coffee industry, but also having the confidence that our customers are going to receive it well, and constantly just putting ourselves out there with new products, or trying something different with our coffees. And so always just being able to do that of just taking that step of “we love this, and we are going to confidently put this in front of our customers.” Obviously always looking for feedback, but just constantly moving forward in confidence. And then also, there are a lot of moving pieces. Because obviously, there is no coffee grown in the U.S., so it’s not as easy as going to the supermarket and buying green beans, bringing them back, and roasting them. These coffees are coming from hundreds of thousands of miles away, and it’s going from being picked by hand to being loaded on the back of a pickup truck, to being sorted and processed, and from there going on a ship, and from there going on a train, and then on a semi truck when it gets here… so there’s just a lot of moving pieces, and with that, it provides a lot of challenges. It’s a lot of things—thankfully, we’re not handling every aspect of that, but those aspects do affect us with pricing, and arrival times, and all of that—so there’s challenges, a lot of things to keep tabs on to ensure that we have what we need when we need it, and that we’re also able to work with those pricing difficulties with the producers but also with our customers, that we’re being able to bridge that gap for those people. And then also, I think the other hard thing is being able to kind of drown out all of the noise surrounding all of the opinions and ideas when it comes to coffee. There’s so many different ways to look at it, there’s so many different opinions, and a lot of it is not necessarily right or wrong, it’s simply you have to choose the path of—we’re choosing this path with our coffees, and for our clients—and kind of narrowing in on what we want to provide. Obviously our hope is never to be so inwardly focused that we’re not trying new things and providing new things, but also being able to drown out all the different ideas and not trying to pursue everything at the expense of not being able to do any of it well. So just being able to figure out what our main focus is with what we’re providing and what we’re pursuing while still remaining open to new ideas. 

I think some of the most rewarding things have been one—just getting to watch people enjoy our coffee. I love… one of my favorite things is when I’m having a conversation with somebody about our coffee, and they say something like.. “I always put cream in my coffee, but now that I’m drinking your coffee, I can just drink it black.” And I absolutely love that. I obviously have nothing against if somebody wants cream in their coffee, but getting to hear other people’s journey with our coffee, and as they continue to develop their palettes and get to enjoy our different coffees. So that’s always fun to see. And I think also just the reward of taking something from the beginning, and working with it until it’s the finished consumable product. It’s just really rewarding. You know, we’re taking essentially a raw material, and working with it and developing it to where it’s ready for somebody to enjoy and consume. And there’s a lot of reward with that. There’s a lot of creativity within coffee as well, and just the roasting process, and different roast levels, and all the different tweaks that you can do to get flavors you want out of it, so there’s a lot of reward in that creativity as well.

So long term vision with coffee farm partnerships—at this point, we only have one direct-trade relationship. The rest of ours, we’re still working with importers. We have been making some shifts with the importers we’re working with, to purchase through importers who do have more transparency with their relationships with the farms, and that they’re able to provide us more transparency, and then also importers that give us the opportunity to pursue relationships with those farmers, even though we are not necessarily directly buying from them. And so building more and more of those relationships, not only with the farmers, but also with the importers that are providing transparency, and are providing good relationships with the farmers on their end as well. And there is going to be a combination probably of us starting more of what we consider direct-trade relationships, where  we’re not necessarily going through an importer, and simply building strong relationships with good importers as well. Because there’s a lot of challenges with direct-trade where we aren’t able to do that with all of them, and obviously, long-term goal, would love to be able to do that with all of our origins. But also understanding that we need to be able to have variety, and we don’t want to narrow it down to only doing that if we do have other good opportunities as well and other relationships that we can build with quality importers.

There’s a lot of great coffee producers out there. There’s a lot of great roasters. We are very proud of the product that we have, and obviously we would not be putting it out there if we didn’t love it ourselves, and weren't confident that our customers were going to love it. There are a couple things that I think set us apart. We truly are a very small-batch roastery, to where if you have a specific coffee that you want, and you want to pick it up on a certain day, we can provide that. So we have the opportunity for some flexibility with our customers, especially local customers, and then also we do use fluid-bed roasting for all of our coffees, which provides lower acidity, cleaner flavors, it enhances the flavors of the coffees, and we think through that method, we’re able to highlight the coffees really well, and we’ve just got a lot of really positive feedback on those coffees because of how clean they are, and the lack of bitterness, and all of these things that—through the feedback that we’re constantly getting from our clients and from our coffee shops—we’re able to continue to produce coffees that everybody is loving. And the other side of it is when you’re buying through us, you’re impacting our local community, you’re impacting communities across the world, through our partnerships, and whether it’s through local charities that we partner with, or whether it’s through our partnerships in those producing countries, where we’re able to give back, and we’re able to provide wages for people in those countries through your purchasing through Impact. 

So I have a lot of personal favorties, it depends on my mood and time of day which one I’m choosing. So typically, my first cup in the morning, I’m starting out with something like the Honduras which is a medium roast, or our Homeland blend—those are two of my favorites that are just really good daily go-tos. And then when I want to, you know, step out and do something different, or do something a little bit brighter, more fruity, the Tanzania Peaberry is a favorite for sure to get those bright blueberry notes, citrusy notes… and then I also really really love our Ethiopian Yirgacheffe. Also a little bit brighter, but really good sweetness, and it’s just a really good daily drinker as well. So those are my top four favorites, it would be really hard for me to pick one favorite out of those, but those four for sure are all on my long-term drinking list.

So as far as new things go, we’ve got a couple things that we’re in the process with, a couple new origins that we’re developing. We’re in the process right now of hopefully bringing one or two Guatemalan coffees to our lineup, which is a first, we don’t currently have any Guatemalan offerings, so we’re pretty excited about that. I’m not going to go to much into what those tasting notes and things are going to be yet, but some really really good Guatemalans that we’ve been working with developing, and hopefully those will be coming to our shelves and our online store within the next month or so. And then we’re also working on some cool new merch that will probably be coming hopefully later this summer. And we’re going to continue to work on developing new coffees. If you guys have coffees that you would love to see us carry, we would love to hear feedback. Not promising that every time that somebody has a coffee that they want that we are going to be able to develop that and add it to our lineup, but we do want to hear feedback for what our customers would like to see, and we love working with new coffees. We love developing new coffees—so we are always looking to expand our lineup and offer good offerings from other origins, or different farms. 

The long-term vision for Impact is just to continue to grow in the products that we’re offering, and continue to build relationships with more farms, more producers, and continue to just build more relationships around central Ohio as well through wholesale—whether it’s to coffee shops, markets, things like that. And then just continue to grow as a company in our transparency, and hopefully as we grow that we’re able to just bring more transparency, more connection between our consumers and our producers, and build those relationships and hopefully continue to just be a really good catalyst in the coffee community for that growth and continuing to see where we can make an Impact. 

So where I see Impact having a positive impact in our community currently: one thing is we’re really the only specialty roaster in our community at this point, so being able to provide that specialty, locally roasted coffee. And then also impacting our communities through our coffee shops, through our cafés, whether it’s the Mansfield community or the Mount Vernon community, being able to offer our lineup of coffees at those shops, and essentially, we’re building relationships through each cup of coffee that we’re serving, and just being able to see that impact that we’re being able to have through those cafés. 

According to my staff, I drink a lot of coffee… it really depends on the day, some days I try to be reasonable and have 2-3 cups, some days it looks more like 5-6 cups. I’m pretty routine with my coffee, so if I’m opening behind bar and I’m dialing in the espresso, I usually start my morning with a double shot of espresso, and then from there it usually goes into drip coffee, maybe a latte. Other days, I always start out with a cup of drip coffee, and then from there it might go into a cortado or something like that. But most days, I would say minimum is probably 3-4 cups of coffee, and up to 5 or 6, and then after that… I try not to count typically [laugh]. 

So I’ve had the opportunity to go to our Honduras producers a couple of times and just get to see the work that they’re doing there, and to visit the farms, get to ride around with them, and just see what they’re day to day looks like as coffee producers, and just taking it from growing the coffee, picking the cherries, to the processing, and then where it goes from there. And then also just getting to see their communities, and getting to see how they’re impacting their community. And it’s just been a really really cool opportunity to have that relationship and continue to grow that relationship with them. So when we get that coffee from Honduras, we know exactly where it came from, we know how it’s grown, we know what they’re practices are in producing, in processing, and we get to see the work that they’re putting in to provide quality coffee. It’s not only providing quality coffee for us, but it’s providing jobs and opportunities for people in their communities as well. 

I think there are several aspects to how an origin trip like that affects our view as people, but also people in the coffee industry. It has built a greater appreciation in me for coffee and for coffee from start to finish. And just a greater appreciation for the work that goes into the cup of coffee that I drink every morning, and the amount of hands that that passes through, the amount of work that goes into it, we often miss that. And I think one of the things that coming back from that, it really made me want to make sure that I’m doing everything that I can to tell their story. That we’re doing everything to make sure that our end consumer knows where this coffee came from, and knows the story behind it, so that it’s not just a cup of coffee, that there is a story there, and there’s people behind that cup of coffee, and that we’re appreciating every step of the way.

So when you hear specialty coffee, you may ask “well, what does that even mean?” There are a couple things that make coffee specialty coffee versus what’s called C grade, or more of a commercialized coffee. So every coffee that we’re getting is all cupped, and there’s a number system that is used for coffee grading, it’s called Q grading. So specialty coffee means that it hits 84 points or above, and so all of the coffees that we’re using hit that mark or above. And so the difference essentially between specialty versus other just commercial coffee is how it’s graded. All these coffees are hand-sorted, and so they’re looking for defects, they’re looking for sizing, and all of these things determine whether it goes into specialty grade or whether it just goes into a batch of commercial grade. And so typically with specialty grade, you’re getting the best. And typically what’s being sold commercially is going to have defects, probably the sizing is not optimal, and then it’s just all going to some big commercial facility so that it can be processed, roasted, and packaged. Whereas specialty is going to places like Impact, that are smaller roasters, that are using traditional roasting methods, and putting a lot of care and intention into the roasting and the packaging, and all of that end consumer product, whereas commercially, it’s going to big plants, and you’re probably getting mixes of different coffees all going into the same packaging depending on what it is, and there is just a lot less detail that goes into it, versus specialty grade.