Great Coffee and a Second Chance

A few weeks ago I read an article about the Second Chance Coffee Company out of Wheaton, IL. If you haven’t heard of them, they are a coffee roasting company which employs people who have been in prison, and are determined to change their lives. I was intrigued by this notion, and contacted Pete Leonard, Master Roaster and Founder of the company. He graciously spoke with me, while he has driving back from a business trip in Wisconsin. 

Leonard is passionate about two things: excellent coffee and helping those who are trying to turn their lives around. His desire to roast coffee came as a result of a 2005 church mission trip to Brazil. In the community he was visiting, he discovered coffee was being roasted over an open fire. He remembers drinking this coffee, and thinking, “This was the best coffee ever.” Prior to this, good coffee for Pete was sipping mochas from Starbucks. 

He loved the coffee so much, he brought back 10 kilos of coffee to give to people who had donated towards his mission. In the end though, he drank about 8 kilos of the coffee, and carefully doled out the remaining coffee to his supporters. He never had another Starbucks mocha.

His experience though, led him to roast his own coffee. Pete’s garage became his roasting facility. Armed with a Weber Grill, and a makeshift drum created by shelving from IKEA, many coffee failures took place(most notably a fire which took place after he went into the house to get a glass of water). His quality control was a neighbor who would give him his thoughts after each batch. One day though, this neighbor declined the coffee, telling Pete that they could no longer accept the coffee - they wanted to pay for it. Soon other neighbors wanted to buy the coffee coming out of the Weber Grill. Pete was able to roast 2.5 lbs at a time, and sell it to his neighbors. 

Around this time, Pete’s brother-in-law ran afoul of the law. At the time Pete was a medical software developer, and knew his brother-in-law was very smart, so he hired him to help with projects he was working on, while his brother-in-law awaited his trial. 

Once convicted, the brother-in-law went to jail and served a nine month sentence. When he got out, Pete wanted to bring him on board at his company, but the insurance company told him his brother-in-law was a risk and wouldn’t carry him. As a result Pete couldn’t hire him.

Prisons are a two-fold entity. They are places where criminals are incarcerated, but there is also the hope that these people will be rehabilitated, and be able to re-enter society. There are many rehabilitation programs around the country run by churches and other social service agencies to assist in the transition from criminal life to living a more productive life. The problem though is many post-prison people fall back into their old ways and go back to jail, because few businesses are willing to take a chance on hiring ex-felons.

Pete’s brother-in-law was slowing falling back into the habits which got him into trouble. Eventually the brother-in-law had to live with his parents. Pete says that through this, he got to see a “microcosm of not being allowed back into society.”

Each year 20,000 prisoners are released from Illinois correctional facilities into the Chicagoland area. According to figures Pete has seen, 60% of those go back to prison within four years. A person can go through rehabilitation and re-entry programs, but if there is no meaningful work for them, they soon slide into their old habits, as Pete learned through the experience with his brother-in-law.

While roasting coffee and ex-cons don’t seem like typical issues to discuss with friends, it was all a part of life discussions Pete would have each week with his friends Dave Scavotto and Ron deVries. These three met through church, and had weekly breakfast gatherings between October 2006 and January 2007. The men began to form the idea for a coffee roasting company, literally, on the back of a napkin. 

As much of an educational journey as learning about coffee, Pete and his friends learned the ins and outs of creating a business. A business plan had to be formed, and they also had a decision to make, were they going to be a coffee company, or a non-profit venture? Were they on a mission or were they selling coffee? 

In the end the decision was they were going to be a coffee company and produce the best coffee - period! Pete says, “We wanted our coffee to be so good people would buy it regardless of the mission.” If someone didn’t like the fact the company was going to hire post-prison people, it wouldn’t matter because the coffee was so good.

The first step in creating excellent coffee is to make sure you are buying excellent coffee beans. Pete and his partners decided to only acquire the top 1% of coffee that is produced. Coffee is generally graded on a score topping at 100%. The top 1% is coffee scoring an 87% or higher. In comparison, Pete says that coffees such as Folgers or Starbucks Via score a 70%. When trying to gain top 1% status, the difference between an 81% score(which is where is the top 5%) and a 87% score is huge. 

The learning curve for the partners was more than figuring out how to start a business and which coffee to roast. They depended on Pete to learn how to cup coffee, how to roast commercially, taking into consideration that coffees from different regions roast differently. There are also environmental factors to consider, such as humidity. All these factors go into roasting coffee, and Pete who had seen coffee roasted for the first time in 2005, was about to produce coffee on a commercial scale. 

Second Chance Coffee Company was incorporated in June 2007, and in June 2009 started producing coffee. Their business plan called for ambitious growth, with a goal of 150 roasting plants around the country. Pete has gone from a garage at home roasting effort of producing 2.5 lbs of coffee at a time,  to Second Chance producing 4000 lbs of coffee a month. The company has had 100%+ growth each year. Currently Second Chance is on the shelves of Whole Foods in Chicago, in regional restaurants, and various farmers markets. They are expanding into markets such as Denver and Milwaukee. 

Part of the key to this tremendous growth is the freshness of the coffee. You can order coffee in the morning, and in the afternoon it’s done. For those who live within 5 miles of Second Chance, you pay an additional $1 and they will drive the coffee to you. For orders from further away, it can take 1-3 days, depending on where you live. If the company can establish those 150 roasting plants, fresh coffee will be the norm for those communities. 

When asked about the jobs post-prison people work, Pete is clear, “Everything,” he says. “Roasting, sales, delivery, marketing, it doesn’t matter.” Second Chance partners with non profits who assist those trying to re-enter society. Not everyone coming out of prison can come to work for the coffee company. 

“They either need to be in a re-entry program, or a graduate of a program,” says Pete. He gets inquiries from those currently in prison, letting him know when they are getting out, and are asking about jobs.He lets them know they need to be out for a certain period, and dedicated to their rehabilitation.

Pete wants “to be sure they are serious about this.” He looks at what they did in prison. Did they participate in programs, because they had to, or was there an initiative to improve their lives? Did they get counseling and are they still in counseling? What he doesn’t want is to hire people who are just figuring new ways to avoid prison. 

Second Chance is usually not a final stop for someone out of prison. He has had people working anywhere from a month and a half to three years. He says, “This can be a stepping store to other skills and jobs.” Pete is clear his company is not rescuing people, “We are set up to help people rescue themselves.” 

What happens if you have no record, and you want to work for Second Chance? If you a haven’t had a conviction, Pete most likely won’t hire you. While he understands times are hard for everyone, they are even harder for those with a criminal record, and he wants them to have a chance.

Not everyone is a success story. They have hired people who worked there a limited amount of time, but due to other circumstances in their lives, have slid back into a bad life, or in one case died due to an overdose. Still, the small number of setbacks doesn’t deter the mission of Second Chance. 

The company not only partners with area non profits seeking to help these people, they donate part of the profits of the company back into these organizations. Also, when they plan where to headquarter their company or roasting facilities, they consider access to public transportation. Most post-prison don’t have cars, and are totally dependent on good public transportation. If they can’t get to work, what’s the point in offering jobs? Their dedication to helping these people is, “baked into our fabric,” he insists. 

Pete Leonard has spoken to schools and other businesses about his social business, and how there isn’t as much risk to hiring someone with a prison record as they might think. Still, his company is unique. 

Coffee is often used to raise social awareness. In churches you may be served coffee with a “Fair Trade” label on it, which indicates that monies from that coffee are making lives better for farmers in developing countries. Other organizations use coffee, roasted by commercial roasters to raise money for whichever charitable cause they are advocating. Pete refers to this as “Crappy causal coffee.” No doubt those coffees are not one of the top 1%. While those groups have the best of intentions, they are not coffee companies on a mission. They are more missions who happen to sell coffee.

When reminding him that his goal was to be a coffee company which produced the best coffee, and still serve a mission, I asked if Second Chance leans more one way than another. “It’s an even mix,” he says. Clearly, the company has found a balance and is a success.

Towards the end of the conversation, I admitted to Pete I had yet to sample his coffee. Never fear though....I will. When I do, I am going to imagine what it was like when he attempted to roast on his Webber Grill.

Second Chance’s coffee brand is “I Have a Bean,” and can be purchased at

www.ihaveabean.com

Charlie