Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/641418
STiR tea & coffee industry international 11 NEWS Ninety Plus 10th Anniversary Nnety Plus Coffee is celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2016 with a series of events. The direct buy coffee importer evolved from founder Joseph Brodsky's Novo Coffee roasting firm in Denver. Brodsky was inspired by his travels in Ethiopia in 2005 where he conceived of "creating taste profiles at origin farms, rather than the conventional approach of building flavors at the roasting and Semeon Abay, director of profile processing at Ninety Plus Coffee Ethiopia, sits with c.e.o. Joseph Brodsky and Jake Brodsky, far right. retail level." Ethiopia remains a cornerstone of the business where Brodsky partners with Abdullah Bagersh, who chairs the East African Fine Coffees Association. The Bagersh family was the first company to export coffee from Ethiopia and currently is the country's fifth largest exporter. Brodsky said that these partner- ships allow Ninety Plus to control quality and innovate taste profiles with a talented team at the source. The company has since purchased its own farms in Panama, established a network of distributors that, under contracts, buy large volumes of green coffee and then re-sell to roaster and retailer customers in their region. This strategy propelled growth, creating a global reach. Asia became the company's largest market. In 2015 the company introduced the Levelup coffee brand and later Level 1 coffee. Ninety Plus Coffee is headquar- tered in Miami with offices in Volcán, Panama. Learn more: www.ninetypluscoffee.com Pethiyagoda Named New Sri Lanka Tea Board Chair The Minister of Plantation Industries Navin Dissanayake has appointed Rohan Pethiyagoda to chair the Sri Lanka Tea Board. Pethiyagoda is a well-known Sri Lankan businessman and government officer in the Ministry of Tourism and Sports. An author, he is recognized for his work in the environment and biodiversity fields and has initiated a project to convert abandoned tea gardens into natural forest cover. He is a research associate of the Austra- lian Museum and is also an editor of the Asian Freshwater Fish section in the journal Zootaxa. Pethiyagoda has written several books in addition to some 60 research papers in scientific literature. He completed his secondary education at St Thomas's College, Mount Lavinia and B.Sc. in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, at King's College, University of London in 1977. He also completed his M.Phil. In Biomedical Engineer- ing, University of Sussex in 1980.