Jon Rogers: Coffee buff avoids brokers, helps improve conditions for growers

Kelly Zito, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, August 6, 2003

Jon Rogers remembers drinking his first cup of coffee at age 15 -- an effort to impress older classmates at a Wisconsin all-boys boarding school.

Fifty-five years later, Rogers sips a black cup of joe, relishing the flavor of the piping hot drink (aficionados like him say it must be heated to a scorching 200 or so degrees) and the fact that he has left peer pressure far behind.

In fact, Rogers, the president and chief executive of coffee importer JBR Gourmet Foods in San Leandro, has become something of an industry maverick.

For one, JBR -- the firm's name is derived from Rogers' initials -- doesn't buy coffee through large brokers, which often use prices set on the Coffee, Sugar and Cocoa Exchange (CSCE) in New York. He buys directly from Central and South American coffee growers -- a practice he began in 1986 after his youngest son, Pete, visited Guatemala and saw the appalling living conditions of workers.


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