Annual Report 2021

In 2021, World Coffee Research celebrated 10 years of innovation and global leadership in coffee agriculture since our formation in 2011. Over the last decade, the organization has matured tremendously from being a scrappy startup into a global leader, defining a vision shared by farmers, coffee-producing countries, and roasters to leverage agricultural R&D for productivity, profitability, quality, and climate resilience.

“One improved variety can mean less plant disease, pesticide use, and deforestation—with more resilience, yield, taste, and profit benefiting more people—than anything else we can do. Not only does agricultural R&D have the best ROI, investing with peers brings both scale and expertise,” says Doug Welsh, Vice President of Coffee and Roastmaster at Peet’s and Immediate Past Chair of the WCR board.

The 2021 annual report includes details and highlights regarding the progress that WCR has made over the past year alongside our members and partners, in addition to a roadmap of our strategy and plans for upcoming work between 2021–2025.

We would like to extend a special thank you to Fabián Echeverría-Beirute, Research and Development Specialist at the Instituto Tecnologico de Costa Rica, Pil Hoon Seu, founder of Coffee Libre, a WCR member company, and the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan, for assisting with the translations of this report and helping us extend our reach to coffee communities globally.