NEW YORK – The 2013 NCA Coffee Summit will explore developments in the single-cup segment, the challenges of a sustainable supply chain, and techniques for managing business risk, along with topics brought to the table by participants.
By design, the Summit combines traditional professional development with open-space, collaborative learning to yield practical solutions to real-time business challenges.
In a professionally facilitated, interactive setting, the Summit integrates the knowledge of presenters with the experience and perspective of attendees from diverse industry and supply chain functions. In this way, NCA offers a program that channels learning through the realities of business applications to deliver practical, deployable solutions.
“In the final analysis, the true value of professional development lies in the solutions it creates for your business,” said Robert F. Nelson, NCA president & CEO. “Only by putting facts and figures through the prism of experience and application can they spark the practical approaches and strategies that will solve real-time challenges and propel the bottom line.”
The 2013 NCA Coffee Summit takes place on October 2 – 4 at Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia. Registration is now open.
Program
The Coffee Summit program combines expert presentations on select topics of broad current relevance with interactive discussions on those topics as well as on questions and topics posed by attendees for collaborative exploration leading to targeted solutions. Presenters include Ross Colbert, Global Strategist Beverages Sector at Rabobank International and Tracy Ging, Director of Sustainability at S&D Coffee & Tea.
Topical sessions planned for this year include:
- Coffee Sustainability: What Is It? Who Defines It? And Why Is It Important? Ensuring a Sustainable Supply of Coffee: What Risks and Opportunities Do We Face?
- Business Risk Management: Is Your Company Prepared?
- Single Cup One Year Later: The Impact of the Patent Expiration and Other Significant Changes
Aside from facilitated discussions on these topics following the presentations, other designated discussion sessions include:
- Learning Exchange: What are our realities, needs, opportunities and challenges?
- Open Space: Self-selected/directed discussions
- Government Affairs Update from NCA
- Continue the Conversations Cocktail Reception
- Learning Exchange: What will we take back to our offices?
Feedback
The Coffee Summit format has received very positive feedback from attendees. Among the comments was that the Summit afforded the opportunity to tackle an issue with the benefit of the perspectives of industry colleagues who function in different roles up and down the supply chain.
For example, a solution that makes sense for a roaster may look entirely different after sharing concerns with importer/exporters, packagers or retailers.
Also mentioned were the Summit’s outstanding networking opportunities. In the interactive sessions, attendees are grouped based on questions they select or at random by meeting facilitators. In this way, attendees are brought into rotating contact with others. One attendee noted that the Summit was unique in that, like no other conference he had ever attended, it enabled him to meet every other attendee.
