“Help, Healing and Hope, One Cup at a Time.”
Writer / Janelle Morrison
Celebrating their decade at the Carmel Farmer’s Market is Mission Coffee, LLC. principal Peter Beering explains that Mission Coffee is a closely held company that imports and resells coffee grown at the Boquete Medical Mission in Northwest Panama. Peter originally set the company up to support the work of his close friends Alan and Debbie Handt, who are retired physicians and residents of Zionsville. Alan was the former Chief Medical Officer at St. Vincent Hospital. Peter went to Panama to see what Alan and Debbie were doing on this coffee farm. He came back and set up the supply chain, licensing, and marketing and began looking for places to sell Mission Coffee. He started with online sales and then began selling bulk coffee at the Carmel Farmer’s Market. A few years later, he began brewing coffee at the market.
“We’ve been doing single-source coffee since long before it was fashionable and trendy,” Peter explained. “Our model is deliberately different in that we front-load the contribution to the mission by buying the coffee at retail from the farm. We spend a lot of time recovering most of our costs and then we help the mission throughout the year by raising additional proceeds. We send medical diagnostic equipment, medicine and money down there so they can continue to work and be healthy. The coffee they produce is often referred to as ‘estate coffee’ because it’s the best of the best coffee. Because of the high quality, we don’t have to work hard to sell it.
What makes the story about Mission Coffee stand out from other farms and resellers of coffee is the path from the coffee’s origin to the end-user’s cup. “What puts it way over the top is the back story,” Peter said. “We literally know every single human being who touches the coffee, with the exception of the baggage handlers with United Airlines who fly it up here as air freight.”
For more information about Mission Coffee or to purchase coffee, visit their website at missioncoffee.org/.
Comments 1
Not too much help, healing, and hope, for folks here in Boquete, Panama, where the Handts have had their “Medical Mission/Coffee Finca” for the last fifteen years. While the date of this article was just before the most recent complaints of sexual abuse of minor girls by Dr. Alan Handt, we are posting what we know so others can make an informed decision about continued support of such an operation.
Three complaints of sexual abuse of minor girls in Boquete, Panama, were filed against Dr. Alan Handt in 2007, and three more in 2014. We were volunteers at their “Mission” for a year not knowing it was actually a private property and coffee business. Lots of hours, money, and resources have been donated over the years to the Handts’ “Mission” by well-meaning but ignorant volunteers and church groups. We still live here in the area and this is the situation as of now: 1)The “Mission” has not been operational for services since Dr. Handt was back in Zionsville from August, 2014-July, 2015, awaiting the results of the sexual abuse investigation; per other sources Dr. Handt was out of the country for lengths of time during other complaints of sexual abuse of minor girls over the years; 2)per the Boquete Mayor’s attorney in February, 2016, Dr. Handt’s “Mission” is not providing eye clinic services as previously; 3)Dr. Handt is seen regularly around town here again since the case of sexual abuse was provisionally closed, but Deborah Handt is not back with the understanding in the community that she left Dr. Handt (as of August, 2014); 4)Deborah Handt is not a physician per her own statement to us, but only went through medical school (though we did see her regularly seeing patients during our year at the “Mission”); 5)as far as donation of medical equipment, medicine, and money, no one would know for sure as the Handts provide no financial or other reporting to their donors and have no board oversight whatsoever (per many sources), but again no services have been offered since August, 2014; 6)concerning the quality of the “Mission Coffee,” all the coffee from this area is good quality, but we haven’t heard anyone in the area lauding Dr. Handt’s “Mission Coffee” as the “best of the best,” or even selling it, but rather some of the “best” is considered to be other large coffee fincas coffees such as “Café Ruiz,” “Janson,” and “Hacienda La Esmeralda”; 7)while the Handts may know many of the human beings who touch their coffee, the “Mission” workers we know of live like U.S. plantation era cotton pickers.