Transparency Report 2023: How we calculate a fair profit margin

Four years in, we’re seeing a critical mass of people — ecology-minded farmers, risk-taking importers, roasters who want to pay fairly, cafes shaping their communities, baristas who are passionate about human rights, and conscientious consumers — emerging everywhere we look to make the coffee value chain kinder and more fair. That's incredible.

As a result, our annual transparency report has evolved a little bit. It's a live, crowd-sourced document on how to change who has power and who gets to have a sustainable livelihood in coffee. Some headlines: We're showing you how we calculate a reasonable profit margin for the first time. We lost a bit of money last year (somewhat normal in the start-up phase), and gave away lots more. And we've shifted a LOT more coffee to some pretty die-hard supporters.

One coffee industry veteran recently joked to us that the problem with transparency reports is that no one ever reads them! We know it’s just the opposite for Skylark, though: Our traffic jumps by 2000% when this document lands and remains the most-read page on our site all year long.

So for all you report card nerds out there, here's our new one for 2023 — 8 big goals and how we're doing so far to meet them. Feedback is always welcomed and indeed wanted, so feel free to email micah@skylark.coffee with your thoughts. We'll break out some of the important bits for discussion in the coming weeks.