QUALITY

AND

SUSTAINABILITY

Oddly enough, sustainability and locavore have become such buzzwords lately. Here at The Spro, this whole ideal of sustainable methods, green and everything associated with it, has been a slow, progressive change. It's not something we were able to jump into whole hog. We've been slowly wading into the waters to make sure that it was the right move for us.

Happily, it has been a great adventure.

Our mission has always been to deliver quality coffee and foods to you, our customers. By learning, paying attention and utilizing producers and suppliers who share in our commitment to quality, we've been able to constantly refine and improve our focus and our products.

First and foremost is our coffee. It's important to us to offer you the best quality coffee that we can find. We do this by working with some great coffee roasters, most notably Hines-Origins Organic Coffee in Vancouver.

After spending several months getting a feel for things in Towson, we decided to eliminate the 20z drink in February 2007 because the very large-sized drink would cool down and degrade the quality of the beverage before you had a chance to finish it.

In April of 2007, we solidified our plan to create all of our syrups by hand using 100% cane sugar. Previously, we had been using small-batch, company-made syrups. The difference in quality between our company-made and house-made syrups wasn't dramatic (since we had always controlled the processes), it now brought it in-house, made by our baristas and flavored only with 100% natural ingredients. For example, our vanilla syrup uses real, Madagascar vanilla beans to infuse its' flavor into the syrup.

By June of 2007, we had switched all of our dairy to the locally-produced, pastured and grass-fed Jersey cow milk from Trickling Springs Creamery in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. This change in milk moved us away from the large-scale, corn-fed and antibiotic-driven milk to an all-natural, antibiotic-free, rBST free and Certified Organic milk that's rich, delicious and well, tastes like milk.

During July 2007, we finally got our little three kilo coffee roaster up and running and started testing and exploring the sourcing and roasting of coffee ourselves to bring us to a greater degree of control and understanding on the sourcing, processing and roasting of coffee. Our exploration into roasting is not intended to replace our current roasters, but rather to allow us to source special lot coffees and augment our offerings to you.

Chocolate syrup had always been a bit of a problem for us. It was either the quality that we didn't like or the ingredients in the syrup that we didn't like. During September 2007, we started implementing a house-made chocolate syrup that would eventually replace the commercial syrup we had been using.

Another ingredient that has been at the forefront of our thoughts is High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). It simple pervades just about everything we consume and believe that HFCS (and other corn derivatives and additives) is the leading cause of obesity and health problems in the United States today. With this in mind, we started to either replace or eliminate products that contain HFCS with equivalent sugar cane based product.

In October 2007, we made our first major shift away from HFCS by replacing Coke with a 100% Cane Sugar sweetened, glass bottled Coca-Cola imported from Mexico. We also replaced our soda selection with Mexican Jarritos, Sidral Mundet and Senorial - all of which are sweetened using pure cane sugar.

By November 2007, we had fully implemented our chocolate syrup program and switched to a syrup based on a 70% Cacao, single-origin chocolate from Colombia. It was also during this month that Mom began to fully implement dairy from Trickling Springs and eggs from Springfield Farm into all of her baked goods and cakes.

As we move into 2008, we will continue to refine and improve our methods, processes, sourcing and products. It is our goal to create thoughtful, compelling and delicious coffee beverages and related products.

We invite you to visit our suppliers in-person or through their websites to learn more about the products we use and you consume:

 

Hines - Origins Organic Coffee
1245 Cartwright Street
Vancouver, British Columbia V6H 4B7
604-684-5552
www.originscoffee.com

Springfield Farm
16701 Yeoho Road
Sparks, Maryland 21152
410-472-0738
www.ourspringfieldfarm.com

Trickling Springs Creamery
2330 Molly Pitcher Highway
Chambersburg, PA 17201
717-709-0711
www.tricklingspringscreamery.com

Woodberry Kitchen
2010 Clipper Park Road, No. 126
Baltimore, Maryland 21211
410-464-8000
www.woodberrykitchen.com

While they're not our mainstay suppliers, we also source product from these great people:

Counter Culture Coffee - www.counterculturecoffee.com
Paradise Roasters - www.paradiseroasters.com
Ecco Caffe - www.eccocaffee.com
One Straw Farm - www.onestrawfarm.com

 

The best thing about these suppliers is that "openness" and "transparency" are not just buzzwords, they embody its' meaning and practice it on a day-to-day basis. We encourage you to visit them and see for yourself just what we have seen and why we decided to work with them.