BUSINESS & AG LIFE
2B — THE OBSERVER & BAKER CITY HERALD
THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2021
More premium coff ee arrives in Wallowa County
Business sells
imported Costa
Rican beans
By BILL BRADSHAW
Wallowa County Chieftain
ENTERPRISE —
Another premium coff ee
outlet is coming to Wallowa
County.
In fact, it’s already here,
as True Mountain Coff ee
is importing green coff ee
beans from Costa Rica to
roast and sell.
Lyman Warnock, of
Enterprise, is working in
conjunction with a longtime
friend, Gustavo Rodriguez,
of Tilarán, Costa Rica, and
Warnock’s wife, Mildred
— Rodriguez’s niece — to
bring the Arabica beans
from Central America.
“About two years ago, I
started talking to Gustavo
about this coff ee. (I told
him) it’s a really growing
business, and we’ve got to
look into this,” Warnock
said. “So I started studying
it on the internet — I didn’t
know anything about the
coff ee business. We usually
drank Costa Rican coff ee,
but not the premium stuff .
He came up for Christmas-
time 2019 and he brought us
some coff ee and we started
talking and contacted some
growers down there.”
Since then, he’s been
working to develop rela-
tionships with Costa Rican
growers and even has found
a local coff ee purveyor who
can roast the green beans.
Beans designated “green”
are simply those that have
been harvested and dried,
but not yet roasted.
Warnock met Scott
McDonald, of Joseph Creek
Coff ee in Enterprise, who
has the needed equipment
Bill Bradshaw/Wallowa County Chieftain
Lyman Warnock pours a measure of Arabica coff ee beans from Costa Rica into a bag Tuesday, June 1, 2021. He will sell the locally roasted beans
from his Enterprise home under the True Mountain Coff ee brand.
to roast the beans. Warnock
packages and sells his own.
“He sells locally, and I
really don’t want to com-
pete with him,” Warnock
said. “He’s doing me a good
turn — we have a good
business relationship.”
Warnock is still devel-
oping his own retail outlets.
“I really have not yet
established a retail outlet
where I sell wholesale to
people who sell it,” he said.
“But that won’t happen until
I’ve secured my source (of
imports from Costa Rica)
and have a couple thousand
pounds of beans.”
Only Arabica beans
Tilarán sells exclusively
— and by law — only the
Arabica beans. As the com-
munity’s local chamber
of commerce represen-
tative Enervey Ramirez
explained, it’s against the
law to sell anything of a
lesser quality.
“Only Arabica. If we
want to compete, it’s better
to compete with quality,”
Ramirez said.
According to the Costa
Rica coff ee website, https://
tinyurl.com/CafebrittAr-
abica, Arabica beans are
a specifi c variety of beans
that is more diffi cult to
grow than other, hardier
stocks. The result when the
beans mature is rich, full-
bodied fl avors leading to
premium blends.
The beans Warnock
imports are all from small
farms of 20 acres or fewer.
“It’s all hand-picked,
hand-sorted and sun-dried,”
Warnock said.
COVID setback
His business has had
some diffi culties getting off
the ground, like many over
the past year because of
the coronavirus pandemic.
He and Mildred traveled
to Costa Rica in February
2020 and were stuck there
for an extra three months
because of travel restric-
tions. They used the time
wisely to learn more of the
coff ee business, but it still
set them back.
“Because of getting
set back, we’re about a
year behind where we
were scheduled to be at
this point,” he said. “I was
hoping to have 10,000
pounds instead of 2,000
pounds. If I secure 10,000
pounds, I can sell to the big
companies and take a lesser
margin.”
The bigger companies,
such as ones in Portland or
Seattle, do the roasting and
can provide Warnock with a
higher volume of sales.
“You’ll want to double
your money. That’s the
whole key,” he said. “If you
don’t double your money,
you’re losing money. I
have a higher profi t margin
because I have less product
to sell.”
At present, he sells his
coff ee beans — unground
— for $15 for a 12-ounce
bag. He often sells six bags
for the price of fi ve, giving
purchasers a bonus. He
now bags the beans from
home, but hopes to expand
in the future by adding
employees. Right now, he
sells about 60 pounds of
coff ee beans every two or
three weeks.
“There’s a certain
amount of shrinkage in
it,” he said. “At 12 ounces,
you’re about breaking
even on a pound of coff ee
because you’re losing like
15-20% of the weight when
it gets roasted — it goes up
the chimney.”
Warnock also is con-
sidering the purchase of
a roaster, but they can be
spendy, so that’s in the
future.
“Roasters can cost
$30,000-$50,000,” he said.
The next step, he said,
is to engage in professional
marketing.
“The whole idea is to
take this to more than Wal-
lowa County — all over
the Northwest, the West
Coast,” he said. “Volume is
the name of the game with
margins. If you don’t have a
huge volume, your margin’s
got to go up. With a big
volume, your margin can
go down and you can really
off er (a deal) to people.”
How did Oregonians spend their federal stimulus checks?
By MIKE ROGOWAY
The Oregonian
SALEM — The federal
government paid out $5.5
billion in stimulus money to
Oregonians during the pan-
demic’s fi rst year.
The money was a cru-
cial lifeline early in crisis,
propping up households
facing lost jobs, school clo-
sures and months of fi nan-
cial insecurity. It also helped
prop up the broader state
economy by boosting con-
sumer spending, which
dipped enormously in the
fi rst months of the pandemic
but quickly returned to
levels approaching normal.
Oregonians used the
fi rst checks, approved in
March 2020, just to keep
their households running,
according to a U.S. Census
Bureau survey. They bought
groceries and paid their rent
Dreamstime/Contributed Photo
The federal government paid out $5.5 billion in stimulus money to
Oregonians during the pandemic’s fi rst year.
and utility bills with the
money, which paid $1,200
per adult and another $500
per child (upper-income
households got less, or
nothing at all.)
That kind of direct
spending is what econo-
mists like to see, and why
these are described as stim-
ulus payments. They don’t
just bail out struggling
households — they stimu-
late the broader economy
and keep it running through
the downturn.
BUSINESS BRIEFING
Geddes promoted to
general manager of
Baker Food Co-op
BAKER CITY — Tiara
Geddes, an employee at the
Baker Food
Co-op since
2017, has been
promoted
to general
manager.
Geddes
Geddes
started her new
position June 7.
Since moving to Baker
City in 2008, Geddes has
managed several local
food-related businesses as
well as launching her own
small business, Geddes
Greens Tiny Farm.
She also serves on the
board of directors for the
Baker City Farmers Market.
“The Co-op is known
for its customer service,
and Tiara will continue and
even improve on that,” Cheri
Smith, Co-op president,
said in a press release. “She
also brings a host of ideas
for freshening our look and
strengthening relationships
within the Co-op, with other
local business, and in the
general community.”
The Baker Food Co-op, at
2008 Broadway St. in Baker
City, is a natural foods gro-
cery and mercantile.
Baker High School
grad named CEO for
The Standard
PORTLAND — Dan
McMillan, a 1984 grad-
uate of Baker High School,
will become president and
chief executive
offi cer, and a
member of the
board of direc-
tors, of Stan-
Corp Financial
Group Inc. on
McMillan
July 1.
McMillan,
who joined the company in
1989, was appointed pres-
ident and chief operating
offi cer in December 2020.
He will replace J. Greg
Ness as chairman and chief
executive offi cer. Ness will
retire as CEO but con-
tinue to serve as execu-
tive chairman of the board,
according to a press release
from the company, which
has as its primary operating
subsidiary the Standard
Insurance Company (The
Standard).
“Dan brings a wealth
of talent and steady, strong
leadership to his newest role
as StanCorp’s chief exec-
utive offi cer, Ness said in
the press release. “His more
than 32 years at The Stan-
dard, deep knowledge of
our culture and unique
employee and customer ori-
entation, as well as his com-
mitment to the community,
position him well to lead
the company to even greater
accomplishments. I look
forward to his success.”
McMillan has held a
succession of leadership
positions in the company,
including executive vice
president and vice president
of the Insurance Services
Group.
“I’m honored by the
confi dence the board has
placed in me and excited to
lead this great company,”
McMillan said. “I look for-
ward to building on the
incredible momentum estab-
lished by Greg during his
tenure.”
— EO Media Group
As time went on, though,
Oregonians used two sub-
sequent payments quite
diff erently.
According to the Census
survey, 16% of Orego-
nians reported they saved
most of that fi rst stimulus
check in spring 2020. But
47% said they saved most
of the December payment
($600 per person) and 45%
saved most of this past
March’s stimulus ($1,400
per person.)
Only 17% used most of
that fi rst stimulus check to
pay off debt, according to
the survey. Roughly a third
of Oregonians said they
used most of their next two
checks to pay down debt.
That suggests Orego-
nians were in a much more
comfortable fi nancial posi-
tion by December — and,
perhaps, that they had few
things they wanted to spend
their money on, given that
restaurants and bars were
closed or severely limited
in capacity and that health
authorities advised against
travel while COVID-19 was
raging.
Just 1 in 5 Oregonians
actually went out and spent
the money that came in
from those last two checks.
(National data was similar.)
That probably muted the
stimulus eff ect of those next
two checks — though Ore-
gonians may be spending
some of that money now,
with the pandemic in sharp
decline. Bars and restau-
rants are back open, air
travel is up sharply and Ore-
gonians are looking forward
to a summer much closer to
normal.
While most people
saved their last two checks,
an analysis of national
Census data last month by
researchers at the Univer-
sity of Michigan suggested
that those latter payments
may have had a profound
eff ect on the lowest income
Americans.
The study found that
food insecurity and fi nan-
cial instability were both
down more than 40% from
last December through
April. The implication is
that the people who spent
those last two checks
couldn’t aff ord to save the
money and that it made a
substantial diff erence in
their fi nancial well-being.
“Declines in material
hardship were greatest, in
percentage point terms,
among low-income house-
holds,” the authors wrote,
“but also evident higher up
the income distribution.”
2021 E ASTERN O REGON
L IVESTOCK S HOW
Tickets available online AND at the gate
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PRCA Rodeo & Horse Racing....4:00 pm
4-H & FFA Livestock Auction....8:00 am
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Carnival....1:00 pm - 9:00 pm
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