Reduction of carbon footprint | Coffee driven by the wind sails towards Sherbrooke

The Sherbrooke company Café William is expecting its first shipment of coffee transported by sailboat any day now… and has just acquired an electric roaster, a world first on an industrial scale

The very first cargo of coffee transported by sailboat intended for the Sherbrooke roaster Café William left Colombia on December 18, culminating several years of efforts by the company to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

L’Avontuura 43-meter schooner, left the port of Santa Marta with the equivalent of four containers of green coffee on board, told The Press the president and CEO of Café William, Rémi Tremblay.

“We want to participate in the growth of the transformation of the industry,” he enthuses, bluntly recognizing the heavy carbon footprint of coffee when consumed in our latitudes.

L’Avontuur Unable to reach Quebec waters at this time of year, its cargo must be unloaded at a port in New Jersey these days and travel the rest of the way by truck.

But Café William has bigger ambitions and is planning to ship a second shipment in June, this time aboard a much larger sailboat, which will carry the equivalent of 50 containers of coffee and which will travel as far as at the port of Quebec.

The quantity of coffee transported is equivalent to a little less than a month of production for the Sherbrooke company, which however anticipates that the transport of all the coffee sold under the Café William brand will be carbon neutral in a few years – the company also roasts coffee for food service companies or for grocery chains that sell it under their own brand.

“Within 12 to 18 months, we will cover the majority of our coffees, with the exception of that from Indonesia,” indicates Mr. Tremblay, hoping to be able to transport coffee from Asia without emitting GHGs. here three years.

In the meantime, Café William intends to offer a new range of more “sustainable” coffee, the origins of which will be selected based on transport by sailboat.

“Then, for the other products, it’s not us who will decide; the margins are thin, the competition is fierce,” says Mr. Tremblay, who nevertheless hopes that his customers will follow suit.

Change of sailboat

Organizing the transport of its coffee by sailboat was not easy for Café William, who has been toying with this project for more than three years.

The Sherbrooke roaster is waiting to take co-possession of the Ceibaa sailboat whose construction in Costa Rica will not be completed until 2025.

It was therefore necessary to charter another ship for the first transports, but the one which had been initially selected, the Vegaa wooden-hulled sailboat more than 100 years old, also had to be replaced.

But Rémi Tremblay is not discouraged by these unforeseen events; Café William is, on the contrary, proud to contribute to the development of transport by sailing cargo.

“There really is a maritime industry that is being organized and we are supporting this industry,” says Mr. Tremblay.

Since sailboats are smaller than motor cargo ships, their loading time is considerably reduced, which compensates for their slightly slower movement, explains Mr. Tremblay.

“The transit time isn’t much different after all,” he says.

World premiere

Café William’s ecological approach does not stop at transport: the company has been busy running its new factory since the fall, equipped with a roaster running on electricity, “a world first on an industrial scale », enthuses Rémi Tremblay.

“It’s no worse madness that we introduced into the construction project,” he says, explaining that the device requires a dedicated electrical input of one megawatt.

The device, which is in reality dual-energy, in order to be able to operate on gas in the event of a breakdown, was designed by the German equipment manufacturer Neuhaus Neotec, which also saw it as a “very promising” project, says Mr. Tremblay.

The operating costs of this roaster should be similar to those of a gas appliance, predicts Mr. Tremblay, who specifies that the objective was not to save money, but to reduce GHG emissions.

“We’re trying to influence the transformation of things in the coffee industry,” he says.

Café William’s new factory has the space and electrical capacity to add two more identical roasters, demonstrating the company’s growth objectives.