S8 Ep31: The Daily Grind: How Coffee Powers Minds and Markets Around the Globe with Wade Johnson
“Everything in the world is about how you're connecting to other people.” —Wade Johnson
From the women farmers cultivating coffee beans in remote regions to the baristas crafting specialty drinks in bustling cafes, coffee brings people together. But more than an everyday beverage, coffee also offers cultural and economic significance. It provides livelihoods for millions while fueling creative and business endeavors. However, coffee production faces growing threats from climate change and fluctuating prices.
Exploradora Coffee is a socially conscious coffee roaster co-founded by Wade Johnson, her mother Alison, and her sister, Hollis. By exclusively sourcing from women farmers and reinvesting in programs for coffee growers, Exploradora Coffee promotes food security as well as economic and social empowerment. The family-run business strives to uplift women coffee producers while securing a sustainable future for this culturally and economically significant crop.
Listen in as Justine and Wade open up about their experiences in navigating family business dynamics and growth strategies, the importance of mentorship, collaboration, and creating efficient tools and processes, the impact of regenerative agriculture practices and building long-term relationships with coffee farms, Exploradora’s future growth plans, and more.
Connect with Wade:
Wade Johnson is the co-founder of Exploradora Coffee, a coffee roastery that sources exclusively from women farmers around the world. With a background in politics, executive recruiting, and coffee, Wade brings diverse experience to building Exploradora Coffee. Wade is passionate about empowering women in coffee-producing countries and donates company proceeds to support mothers through the Springboard to Opportunities nonprofit. Under Wade's leadership, Exploradora Coffee has expanded its restaurant and cafe partnerships while committing to long-term relationships with coffee farms. When not running the day-to-day operations of Exploradora Coffee, Wade enjoys mentoring other entrepreneurs and advocating for sustainable agricultural practices like regenerative farming.
Episode Highlights:
01:35 Building a Family-Owned Roastery
09:08 Empowering Women in Coffee Production
15:46 Evolving Leadership Roles
19:31 Giving Back as Entrepreneurs
26:16 How Regen Ag Impacts Coffee Production
Tweets:
Whether fueling the daily grind or global connections, coffee keeps communities brewing. Listen in as @jreichman and Exploradora Coffee co-founder Wade Johnson talk about how businesses can support coffee farming communities. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season8 #coffeeculture #coffeefarmers #fairtradecoffee #womeninbusiness #femalefarmers #localframers #socialimpact
Inspirational Quotes:
03:23 “Creating a foundation working for other people and other companies enables us to build a skill set that we can then take with us.” —Justine Reichman
05:25 “We're not making up these things from scratch. We're taking what we had before and making them better to make them our own.” —Justine Reichman
09:56 “We decided to make it just women farms to ensure that women at coffee country are being paid equitable wages.” —Wade Johnson
13:56 “Parents are always proud of their kids as they're on their journey, making new accomplishments, achieving new goals.” —Justine Reichman
14:51 “Parent and child relationships often don't have the opportunity to move from parent-child to peer to peer.” —Wade Johnson
18:48 “In a startup, everybody does everything. So it's hard to continue to define those roles.” —Wade Johnson
23:13 “Not everybody can have a vision and execute on it.” —Justine Reichman
24:15 “When you have a business, you get a little caught up and just selling.”
25:53 “Everything in the world is about how you're connecting to other people.” —Wade Johnson
26:07 “Find a couple of people that you can bounce off ideas with, and continues to believe in you, and hold you to the standard that you want to be held to.” —Wade Johnson
28:24 “You don't want to see farms go away because climate change is going to dramatically impact them. Regenerative farming creates a more sustainable practice to allow farms to continue to thrive.” —Wade Johnson
29:07 “Anything that's making people excited to stay in this world is a great thing.” —Wade Johnson
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. With me today is Wade Johnson. She is the Co-Founder of Exploradora Coffee.
Welcome, Wade.
Wade Johnson: Thank you, Justine, for having me.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, it's great to have you on the show to learn a little bit about you, your journey and Exploradora Coffee. So for those that are not familiar with Exploradora Coffee, can we just start there and give them a sense of what Exploradora Coffee is?
Wade Johnson: Absolutely. So Exploradora Coffee was my mom and my brainchild. We are a coffee roastery, and we sourced exclusively from women farmers all around the globe. And we also donate proceeds to a nonprofit that provides guaranteed income to mothers living in low income housing.
Justine Reichman: Wow, that's amazing. I love all the ways that you give back in offering coffee out there, but also giving back to women and supporting women. So what is that charity that you support?
Wade Johnson: It's called Springboard to Opportunities. They're originally based in Jackson, but they help or they work with residents throughout the South. Aisha Nyandoro is the Founder of Springboard. And she's really championed guaranteed income for communities all across the US.
Justine Reichman: And how did you learn about them?
Wade Johnson: When we first started Exploradora, I wanted to have some elements that gave back to communities in the US. So I just started looking for founders of nonprofits in general who had interesting stories, and Aisha was mentioned in an article. And I just thought that the whole idea, their program is fundamentally resident driven. So they meet residents of low income housing and they ask them, what do you need? And then they provide the resources. So I thought that was a really empowering program, in general. And then when I looked to reach out to them, I noticed that they were based in Jackson, Mississippi, which is where I'm originally from. So it all just felt very serendipitous. And that's how I originally found them.
Justine Reichman: Wow, that's great. And I think it's so nice that when you were launching your company, that this was part of the ethos that you were building. So that's really great. So let's go back to the beginning, what is your speciality and background?
Wade Johnson: Of all the places, I did grow up in coffee. My stepdad has been in a coffee roaster for 26 years. So basically my whole life, I've been exposed to the coffee process. But before I went into coffee, I actually worked in politics as a campaign manager, particularly in a lot of more rural communities. And then I had a short stint in executive recruiting for tech companies. And then I decided that I got exposed to the corporate world. It was a really great training ground. And it was time to transition into the coffee world, which is where I've always really enjoyed.
Justine Reichman: That's quite a story. Because the things that you've experienced are all so different, politics and tech. But equally, creating a foundation working for other people and other companies, I think, enables us to build a skill set that we can then take with us, and it creates all boundaries and goals. And allows you to, in my opinion, be able to be more thoughtful about how you're doing as opposed to just, okay, let me just figure out how we're going to do this. But you have a framework that you've built up from knowledge over the last couple jobs. Would you say that that is a fair statement?
Wade Johnson: Yeah. No, absolutely. I feel like every job I've kind of just learned different guidelines and how to do things. One, I've had amazing mentors in every single job I've had, which is something that I actively seek out in anything I do. But yeah, like going into coffee, especially the tech world, it's data driven. And I work for this really great company that everything they do is excellent. And they provide a white glove service. I feel like learning it just from the tech side and then bringing it over to coffee, I now work with restaurants. But having that foundation definitely comes through and offers the restaurant world is very specific. It's a little more, sometimes a little bit more sporadic. And the corporate background gives me like a little bit more regimented approach that I think helps me stay on top of things where they might not always do that if I was only exposed to one world.
Justine Reichman: I agree. And people have come up with tips and tricks and ways to house information, and ways to connect with your team on a weekly basis. That when you use those things, and I'm only speaking from my experience, I felt like I had more tools in my toolbox, so to speak, even though that's kind of cliche. But it gave me those things that I can then integrate to my team, and allow us to be more efficient and effective, as opposed to making it up on my own. We're not really making up these things from scratch. We're taking what we had before, we're making them better to make them our own. And I think having had that experience, I think it really gave me a better jumping off point.
Wade Johnson: Yeah, absolutely. The words that I remember in my very first job as a campaign manager in Mississippi, and I was really empowered to do a lot of stuff in that job. But I was creating all the organization and outreach, and I was a kid. I look back at the stuff I created, which is good practice for me to be creative. But had I been through a couple more campaigns and maybe learned from somebody else, a lot more stuff could have been done a lot quicker, probably.
Justine Reichman: Yeah. How large is your team?
Wade Johnson: It's very small. Very much family business. It's me, my mom, my stepdad and Jack are my co roasters. We both roast together.
Justine Reichman: So that was my next question. When you went back into coffee, and your stepfather had his own business initially. You came at this from a different perspective, what role did that play? And at what point did you guys decide to work together?
Wade Johnson: So it's been a journey. When we originally started, we started in COVID, and it was really just a mechanism for extra revenue so that my stepdads business, they never laid off anybody during COVID. And this was just an extra thing to make more money during COVID. But then it took off into a world of its own. So Exploradora, we originally were told those things. So we were paying his company to roast our coffee, and we're a separate entity, but we still had to work with their team to really dial in the roast that I wanted. And as it's grown and developed, and it's grown in different markets, we actually just opened up our own roastery in Oxford just last month. Not completely severed our ties with them because I know everything because of that team. But we were able to kind of break off and create our own thing. And luckily, we had a baseline of 26 years of roasting knowledge to start our own. And now, it's been cool because my stepdad’s funny. He's like, I never work for him. And it's this interesting dynamic of like, he's very much an entrepreneur and founder. And I'm trying to learn how to do that too. And he's trying to like, let go of the reins to let me go do it. And so it's been a lot of training, patience and grace. And okay, I respect what you know. But also, this is my opportunity to show you what I've learned. And he's technically not fully part of the team, although we completely rely on him. We call him like our coffee consultant because he knows everything. So that's kind of the transition. But now, I am trained how to roast, which has been cool because I've grown up always seeing it and knowing how it works. But now, I'm actually creating the profiles, understanding the machine. And it's a different machine than he used to. So we had this transition of me showing him how to use it, which I actually think was very exciting for him. You could see that he was really proud about it. So yeah, that's how to throw that towards the transition.
Justine Reichman: So now, he's back at his company, and he just offers insight for you who spearheaded Exploradora with your mom?
Wade Johnson: Yes.
Justine Reichman: Okay, awesome. That's so exciting. So now, what makes your Exploradora different from what your stepfather built and the other coffees out there?
“We decided to make it just women farms to ensure that women at coffee country are being paid equitable wages.” —Wade Johnson
Wade Johnson: Yeah. I'm pretty sure that we're the only coffee roastery that exclusively sources from women farmers. The reason we did that is I've had the opportunity to go to coffee origin or coffee countries. And there's been this really big movement and more women coops putting women in positions of power at Coffee origin, which a lot of coffee countries has not been the case. And so we saw that and felt like there was an opportunity to exclusively showcase that. So my stepdads company, they get really great coffee from all over the world. They know who they're getting their coffee from, but we just took it a step further and decided to make it just women farms. And that way, we know that we're taking that extra step to ensure that women in coffee countries are being paid equitable wages. Because even if a coffee farm is doing really great practices, that's not always something you can confirm if it's not just a women Co Op or women farm.
Justine Reichman: Why were you so passionate about advocating and working with women within this regard? So you really wanted to focus on that, you really wanted your whole ethos is all about supporting women and coffee.
Wade Johnson: I think that because I've met so many people at coffee origin, and a lot of them have been women. And there's that kind of natural camaraderie. I think, obviously, I respect every person and coffee men, anybody. But that, I think, as a young woman, I was so inspired by these trailblazers in countries where that's not the standard. The standard is men are always in positions of power, and women really aren't encouraged to do so. So when you have these outliers that are making an effort to empower their own communities, it felt like that was what was important to show on. I think just naturally how I was raised. I was raised by a lot of really strong women, and so I just naturally gravitate towards sort of that orbit. And we've talked about and explored or showcased other innovative farms that maybe aren't solely women, because everybody is doing really great innovative stuff and coffee. This just felt like an opportunity to touch the top one coffee company that really focused on that. Why not?
Justine Reichman: Yeah, why not? Exactly. But I like to hear your perspective and to be able to share that with others to showcase how people can create a niche for themselves based on their passion, their interests, and what they're building. So you took all that experience. You went back there and you're like, okay, this is awesome. And I really want to get involved. And I really want to focus on women. That's what's important to me. And that's my differentiator. And I think that it's just a great perspective and a great way for people to look at the other founders, in fact, to look at that.
Wade Johnson: I think that, particularly in coffee, so many people are doing amazing work. And they're working with really interesting people. But as a founder, you occasionally have to find your niche. And sometimes, stuff does have to be left out of that. But it allows you to stand out, and that was our opportunity to have a space to stand out in.
Justine Reichman: So curious. You worked alongside your stepfather for a while now. What do you think he'd be most proud about with regards to your initiative here? What would he say about you?
“Parents are always proud of their kids as they're on their journey, making new accomplishments, achieving new goals.” —Justine Reichman
Wade Johnson: I don't know. I don't know if he'd say anything out loud, to be honest. I think that, hopefully, he has been impressed by my ability to really learn the mechanics of coffee. I think before it felt very high level. We were just doing sales, we were marketing. And now, I'm to the point where I like to learn how to fix machines. And he sees me getting dirty in it. And I think that's really where he started gaining actual respect. Because now, I can actually speak the language of coffee. And hopefully, exercising a little bit more. I've already said patience. But I was not a patient child, I was kind of fiery. So hopefully, he's seen a little bit of a transition just in our own dynamic that you would be proud of.
Justine Reichman: I think parents are always proud of their kids as they're on their journey, making new accomplishments, achieving new goals. And they're watching it from a bird's eye view sometimes. And it's wonderful to see in that vein as you also work with your mother. Tell me about that. What's that like to work with your mom?
Wade Johnson: I love working with my mom. I think I got super lucky that I have an amazing mom. She's extremely intelligent, and has an amazing work ethic. The nicest lady you've ever met, but has really high standards. My mom has always held me and my sister to a standard of excellence because we can be that. And even in my past jobs, she's always been that voice in my head that's never asked anything. And so now that I work with her, she's still that voice in my head, but also the voice on the other line. And I think it's been cool to see, I think parent and child relationships often don't have the opportunity to move from parent child to peer to peer, which you would like to see as you become adults. But not everybody has a lot of that opportunity. And what's been really cool is my mom and I have found this new respect for each other from peer to peer, adult relationship. And sometimes just a little step into a mothering role when I need mothering. But from a business relationship, I think we see eye to eye on a lot of things. We collaborate really well. We sort of have the same creative visions. And there's a really strong foundation of respect as adults. That's fun to watch.
Justine Reichman: I used to work with my mom so a lot of that resonates. My biggest challenge was when we'd go to meetings. I didn't want to call her mom. I don't know. Is that a weird thing for you?
Wade Johnson: Yes. I don't know how to get around that. How did you get around?
Justine Reichman: That excuse me a lot. Excuse me. Excuse me?
Wade Johnson: Did you call her mom?
Justine Reichman: No. I just called her Susan. That was weird too.
Wade Johnson: My little sister is like, sometimes we do reach on Instagram for people. And my little sister also runs some of the social media, so she'll see me do it. And there's been a couple times where I'll be like, okay, great. My mom and I will follow up with you. And all this is what my sister Hollis is like, don't say that. Just say business partner. But it's so hard to get it out.
Justine Reichman: I will follow up with you.
Wade Johnson: Now I'm really attuned to emails like my business partner. I will refer to her as Alison even though it sounds really weird to me. But I'm like, no one's gonna take me seriously. It's like, let me ask my mom for permission if I can send this.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I remember that too. I would sit at a table with everybody and I'd be like, excuse me, because I didn't want to say mom or Susan, because they all knew that this was my mother. It's a weird predicament to be in.
Wade Johnson: Super weird. It's fun all of a sudden. And sometimes I'm like, sometimes I think other people find it endearing. A lot of people are family businesses. They might not say it all the time. And I think more people actually resonated and resonated with it.
Justine Reichman: Did you think about that before you started it? Or did it not occur to you until all of a sudden you're trying to tell people that your mom's gonna follow up.
Wade Johnson: I didn't think about it. I don't think it was my sister calling me out on it. She's my younger sister, but she is on her stuff. Very, very serious. And so of course, she's the one to like, call me out on it. But I never noticed that.
Justine Reichman: So when you guys got together and decided to co-found this company, how did you guys divide up the roles?
Wade Johnson: They evolved so much over time. So we started four years ago, and it was the side hustle. And in the side hustle, it was like, we get on meetings once a week. And what are we gonna post on social media? I mean, that's what it started off as. And now it's like a fully fledged business. And I quit my tech job a little over a year ago. And when I did that, we had like a brainstorm team meeting because I was a recruiter. I wrote out position descriptions for us. I was like, this is what we'll refer to. And so she was like Chief Marketing. And I was technically CEO, CFO. And we kind of saw how that goes. But in a startup, which is essentially that's what it is. Everybody does everything. So it's sort of hard to continue to find those roles. I think we just finally gotten to the point where we just keep allowing it to evolve. So she'll bring a lot of creative ideas, and then I'm typically the executor. And that's probably the best form of action for us. Now probably, it's more like Co-CEO. We've just gotten to the point where, I'll CCing here on every single thing because when we tried to divide up the roles, there was too much time spent catching each other up.
“You don't want to see farms go away because climate change is going to dramatically impact them. Regenerative farming creates a more sustainable practice to allow farms to continue to thrive.” —Wade Johnson
Justine Reichman: I agree. We're a small team too. I found that CCing everybody allows also for people to pick up if somebody's sick, or to respond more quickly. And that's because we're so small. I imagine for you similarly, you're so small that if your mom was out for a day or two, you have the answer. You can respond. But if you weren't CCing, things would get delayed.
Wade Johnson: Hold each other accountable. Sometimes, stuff will be crazy. When you have big teams, most people catch it. But if you just have us, you could miss an email.
Justine Reichman: You guys have been at this for four years. Now, when you're looking down the road, I'm wondering, what do you see for yourself in the next 5 and 10 years, respectively?
Wade Johnson: Gosh, we have two avenues of business. One is a restaurant. We do restaurant and cafe coffee. And then we do like corporate coffee. And my passion really is working with a lot of restaurants. I find it so much fun, you can get creative. And I just see, right now our company is based in the south, and I really want to see us tap into the southern market of new chefs to work with. I want to really grow that form of business. But I'd also love to grow that direct to consumer online business. That is fun. And also, actually, the biggest thing for me is one of the most sustainable things you can do in coffee is commit to farms year over year. And the way you do that is you have more buying power. You have a customer who's like, I love this Rwanda coffee. I want to have this Rwanda coffee. And then the farmers that you work with, they know that they are getting that income year over year. And I want to get to the point. And right now, there's about four farms that I've consistently bought from every year, and it's continually increasing. And I want to get to the point where every single farm I'm working with knows that we're a consistent customer for them. And we're all growing together.
Justine Reichman: That sounds great. It really ties into what you're doing and your impact. And you give back to that charity as well. You're trying to give back to them. You're trying to connect with women farmers, making sure that they are consistently at the business while you grow your own.
Wade Johnson: Yeah, exactly. And yeah, even that relationship in the last four years has grown tremendously. When we first started working with Springboard, we didn't know each other. It was like, hey, can we partner with you and donate money once a month? They just had an event a couple of weeks ago, and it was mothers who received the guaranteed income share their stories. And we were at that event. We were doing our coffee. These people are our friends now, we're intimately connected with them. And to the point where now they're going beyond guaranteed income. They recently took a cohort of mothers in Colombia to Bogota. And now, they want to do more of those trips, and they want to bring us along with them. Especially if they're going to coffee country. And that's so cool to just watch general relationships evolve. That's why we did this entire thing to just connect, and connect other people around the world.
Justine Reichman: That just sounds like it's growing. And you're integral to that growth. It allows you to be able to give back, but also has such a great impact on what you're trying to achieve. So I mean, props to you. That's amazing. Not everybody can say that they have a vision and can execute on it. What do you think was the greatest thing that allowed you to have that vision and really clearly define and execute it?
Wade Johnson: Oh, man. That's a great question. I think it does come from mentors who are great executors and watching them fully fledged ideas. And for example, I have a godmother, my mom's best friend. She's been a CEO of a couple companies. And she is somebody I often go to, to hold me accountable for a lot of stuff, making sure we're staying on our mission. And same thing, the first campaign I ever worked for, she was a visionary. And she's someone I constantly go back to make sure, hey, can you check in with me? Can you make sure that I'm staying on top of why we started this? Especially when you have a business, you get a little caught up and just selling. Frankly, that's not where my passion is. So having those different people even outside of work to make sure that I'm staying true to what we were doing makes me more excited and energized to continue building what I explore, or I was supposed to be on.
Justine Reichman: So that's fun. So having a mentor has really kept you accountable and empowered you to continue to achieve what your goals are. So if we're talking to founders here and other founders that are building a business and trying to be scrappy and get strategic, what would you recommend to them as it relates to looking for a mentor? What might you tell them?
“Everything in the world is about how you're connecting to other people.” —Wade Johnson
Wade Johnson: I would say, look to the people that maybe are already in your life or someone you admire. People enjoy being mentors. I've found people giving advice and sharing their opinions, and I have never gone wrong and asked somebody to just get coffee with me and share their advice. And I find that every time I do it with a mentor or someone I'm seeking out as a mentor, I always leave feeling really excited and energized to keep going because it feels like, oh, this person that I admire believes in me. And that's the only reason I do it. And I think then when they become your advocate when they're doing other stuff, they think about you. Everybody knows that everything the world really is about how you're connecting to other people. I hope that everything I do, anybody I've worked with, or mentored, or any of that, you want to make sure that you can give back to what they're creating. So I would just say, find one person, find a couple people that you can bounce off ideas with, and someone who continues to believe in you and hold you to the standard that you want to be held to.
Justine Reichman: I think that's great advice, because I think it's really important. People sometimes don't want to impose, but really, if it's the right mentor, they want to give back, and they want to share their knowledge and their information. So I think that that's great. And that's a great tip. I'm curious though, not in this conversation. But we've talked a lot on the show on Essential Ingredients about regenerative agriculture. So I'm wondering though, when we think about regenerative agriculture, we think about the farm or we think about the practices that we use for it, and then it's giving back to the land is healthier, etcetera. So is that important to you, specifically, in your ethos for your business? And that as you grow, you want to be able to integrate that more.
Wade Johnson: Absolutely, yes. I do want to see more farms integrating regenerative farming practices. And I have seen a lot of them do it. Particularly, there's a young community of farmers that are integrating those practices into their farms. And I think they're seeing the benefits of it. So it's a huge factor when I'm purchasing coffee, if that's something that they're even interested in a lot of times. They can't be certified regenerative farming, but they can relate to those practices they're beginning to instate in their farms. And they know what works best for their farm. But that has been a pretty tried and true effort.
Justine Reichman: So regenerative farming is kind of a newer term that people are using. I think that so often, we get caught up. And what does it mean? Everybody's got a different definition. So it can be really confusing. I know that it's important to you to incorporate, and you're still learning what this all means and how it's going to impact. But what are you hopeful for?
Wade Johnson: Well, I'm hopeful that, from what I understand in terms of regenerative farming, coffee country particularly is affected by climate change. And regenerative farming has been an effort to work with that. You don't want to see farms go away because climate change is going to dramatically impact them. And what we've seen as far as I'm concerned with regenerative farming is it creates a more sustainable practice to allow farms to continue to thrive. When you work with farms, you want to make sure that they're gonna stay around for some time. Just a side note, I think that there, again, from what I've heard in it, the younger generation is super invested in practices that do somewhat combat climate change. And this is a form of farming that excites young people and wants young people to stay in coffee, particularly at origin. And so anything that's making people excited to stay in this world is a really great thing.
Justine Reichman: I agree. So for those folks interested in buying Exploradora Coffee, I know you mentioned that you want to impact your sales on a direct to consumer basis. Is there a way for those people watching to buy directly from you?
Wade Johnson: Yes, you can buy our coffee directly at exploradoracoffee.com. We got 10+ varieties, all of them are amazing. And we've got cold brew as well.
Justine Reichman: And so for those folks that are interested in finding out more about where they can try it in a restaurant, is it local to you? Or is it across the country?
Wade Johnson: It's sort of across the country. There's places in Arizona, there's places in Mississippi, and places in New Orleans, South Carolina, randomly. In my newsletters, I often mentioned them. So if you like, subscribe to our newsletter. I'll give updates of new places that we can be found in. And maybe eventually, I'll put up a little side on our page that just lists our partners.
Justine Reichman: Well, you could also put where people put their zip code and see if it's come to their area yet.
Wade Johnson: That's a great idea. I'm going to probably write that down, and do that this week.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. We thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. I love learning about your story. I love learning about how you work with your family, and how you've integrated your core values which are so important to giving back into the ethos of your business. So well done. That's totally inspirational.
Wade Johnson: Thank you. I appreciate you having me and asking amazing questions. It's fun to be able to share more about it.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thanks so much.
