The Birds & Beans® story began in Toronto in 1998 when Madeleine and David Pritchard opened their Café and Roastery – serving only ‘Bird Friendly’® coffee. Ten years later Scott Weidensaul (Pulitzer prize finalist author and naturalist, 'Living on the Wind', 'Of a Feather') and Bill Wilson took up the cause to shift coffee drinking behavior of bird lovers in New England, New York and eventually across the US.

Our Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center (SMBC) ‘Bird Friendly’® independent certification means that Birds & Beans® coffee is 100%-organic shade-grown, ensuring the conservation of migratory bird habitat in Latin America. Tanagers, thrushes, orioles, warblers, oven-birds and other wonderful birds nesting in North America find sanctuary in the rustic canopy, tropical forest-like environments of family coffee farms that carry the SMBC certification. Sun grown coffee – genetically modified and heavily dependent on chemical fertilization, pesticides and herbicides – adds to the destruction of critical bird habitat in Latin America – it literally kills birds we love and is harmful to farm workers and their families. ‘Birds & Beans the good coffee’™ is part of the solution. We want to help add thousands of hectares of shade grown, organic coffee habitat to the family farms already producing a truly sustainable and environmentally responsible crop.

The Birds & Beans partnership has grown to include three ' Voices for the Birds' - authors, naturalists, educators and conservationists. Kenn Kaufman (‘Kingbird Highway’, Kaufman Field Guide series) and Bridget Stutchbury (‘Silence of Songbirds’, Professor and Director of The Stutchbury Lab at York University, Toronto) have joined Scott Weidensaul in getting the word out about The Good Coffee. Kenn, Bridget and Scott toured New England, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New Jersey in 2009 and 2010 for ‘The Birds & Beans Talks’™, a series of free lectures about the birds we know and love and how our lives and theirs are inexorably connected. The Talks continue in 2011. Three family owned artisan roaster partners have joined our collective. They are experts in delivering environmentally sound great tasting coffee. They select, roast and package the best tasting ‘Bird Friendly’® coffee in the world. Our coffee is fresh roasted in New England within days of delivery to your door.

With the support of America’s birders and conservationists, ‘Birds & Beans Coffee the good coffee’™, will become a household name and draw attention to the consequences of each cup of coffee we drink. That's what we call good for everyone! “Be Certain. Buy Certified”®.

The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has developed strict scientific certification standards for coffee farming which is organic, shade grown, sustainable and environmentally friendly. The SMBC certification is the best assurance coffee drinkers can have that the coffee they are drinking is helping preserve habitat needed by migrant birds. Many of our most loved New England and New York birds depend on environments such as those provided by ‘Rustic Canopy’ coffee farming for sustaining their populations – perhaps even for their survival. The development of GM coffee that can be grown in full sun with heavy chemicals, the growth of ‘factory’ agriculture in the coffee lands and the destruction of rain forest make it increasingly difficult for many species to maintain viable population levels. Organic, shade grown coffee farms – family farms – are the best protection we can provide. However, the SMBC ‘Bird Friendly’® certification has not yet become the consumer ‘gold standard’ for sustainable coffee. Birds&Beans™ coffee fills the void and promotes the certification.