Hispanic Heritage Month & Women’s Small Business Month Series – Leticia Hutchins of Alma Coffee
Q&A Featuring Leticia Hutchins of Alma Coffee
Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated each year from Sep. 15 to Oct. 15. October also signifies Women’s Small Business month.
In partnership with Cherokee By Choice investor Georgia Power, COED is honoring Cherokee County’s thriving Hispanic community as well as Cherokee’s numerous female entrepreneurs by sitting down with some of the county’s Latina business owners.
This week we’ll hear from Leticia Hutchins. With a passion for coffee and making a difference, Leticia co-founded Alma Coffee, a specialty coffee roastery and retailer that focuses on direct trade coffee from her family’s farm and surrounding farms in Copan, Honduras. Leticia’s goals include empowering farmers in coffee and bringing recognition to women’s crucial and impactful role in the coffee industry.
Follow and share this series on our Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, @cherokeeoed, and read more articles here.
What inspired you to start your business?
It really came from my family’s background. I was born into the coffee industry – my dad was born and raised on coffee farms in Honduras. I grew up visiting our family coffee farms and thinking everyone went to Honduras and picked coffee cherries for the holidays.
As an adult, I realized that there’s a whole industry behind coffee and how much of an impact you could have through what seems like a simple cup of coffee. There are so many things that happen to get you that one cup. There are truly hundreds of people involved.
After leaving my corporate accounting career, I decided that I really wanted to make an impact, make the world a little bit of a better place and coffee was the perfect avenue to do that.
I wanted to build upon what the generations before me started and actually roast the coffee and sell it directly to consumers, something that no one in our family had done before. It’s really cool to be able to be vertically integrated and show everyone what it takes to get that coffee in your cup.
How has being in Cherokee County helped grow your business?
It’s helped a ton – a lot thanks to the Cherokee Office of Economic Development. They’ve supported us every step of the way from our startup phase to now.
We’re really thankful to be in Cherokee County. It’s where my husband and I met, and we moved back here specifically to start our business because we love it here so much.
Cherokee County has a strong entrepreneurial spirit. They are very supportive of small businesses. As soon as a new small business pops up, you see members of our community begin to talk about it, promote it online, and support by purchasing. I think that’s a beautiful thing.
The North Atlanta Venture Mentoring Service [NAV] is another thing that Cherokee Office of Economic Development does to help small businesses. As Alma Coffee is one of the founding ventures, it has been great to experience a more structured mentorship program such as NAV.
We’ve actually graduated from being a venture this fall; my husband has recently joined the mentor team. That’s been really great to grow and start helping our community too.
What can we as a community do to continue to support you?
Buy our coffee on our website. Visit our space. Come and drink some coffee. Follow us on social media (@myalmacoffee). Talk about us to your friends and family – just brand awareness and spreading the word. Truly how we’ve grown so fast in the past five years is word of mouth.
A strong community can help you exceed what you even dreamed for your business. As an example, the warehouse that we’re located in right now used to be an HVAC company. There was no coffee shop here nor did we plan to have one inside our roastery. We didn’t have a coffee shop here for years, but the community kept wanting to come out and enjoy a cup of coffee, so this whole new business segment popped up.
We never thought anyone would want to drink coffee with us in the noisy warehouse while we’re roasting and fulfilling orders – but today parking and seating can sometimes be an issue.
We’re really thankful that everyone wants to show up and support us.
What advice would you give to other small business owners in Cherokee County?
That’s always a tough question because it’s so industry specific. I would ultimately always come back to don’t give up. Continue persevering. You’re going to have hard days where you want to give up, and you may go home crying and you may be questioning everything.
Take a few minutes, reroute and pivot. Don’t lose your passion. As long as you focus on your passion and continue pursuing it, eventually it will work out.
Sep. 15 – Oct. 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month. What does Hispanic Heritage month mean to you as a business owner?
To me it means working hard in everything that I do. I hope that I represent Honduras and our incredible coffee industry for the amazingly kind, generous people and high-quality coffee that it produces.
Ultimately, as a business owner who started Alma Coffee out of my parent’s basement, I want people to know our business for being a quality product that’s making a difference. That’s what I really want people to focus on when they think of Alma.
October also celebrates Women’s Small Business Month. How is being both a woman and a part of the Hispanic community impacted your decisions and experiences with your business?
I’ve never really reflected on that. I focus on being genuinely myself and I hope that translates to my business. I do feel like everyone’s background inherently will influence who they are and what decisions they make. For me it’s all about making a difference and helping those that don’t have a voice for themselves.
Women are very underrepresented in the coffee industry so we try to highlight their importance and pay homage to their hard work as much as we can.
As an example, we picked the name Alma because it is a female Hispanic name that also translates to ‘soul’ in Spanish. Not only was the meaning very indicative of the heart and soul we have put into the business, but it paid homage to women in the industry.
To learn more about Alma Coffee, visit https://myalmacoffee.com/ and follow them on social media @myalmacoffee.