Dan Bailey

Dan Bailey grew up in coffee-growing regions and lived in a number of international settings over the course of his life. Those years shaped both his working knowledge of coffee and his sense of obligation to the farming communities and landscapes that produce it — a combination that led him into the trade rather than simply into the business.

In 2004 he co-founded Amavida Coffee and Trading Company in Northwest Florida, explicitly to create impact in coffee-producing communities abroad. He serves as the company's president. Amavida buys from cooperatives and producer partners with the intention that the purchasing relationship itself carries value back to origin, and pairs that sourcing model with a retail and wholesale business along Florida's Gulf Coast.

Amavida is a legal Benefit Corporation, meaning its social and environmental commitments are written into its governing documents rather than held as marketing. The company has achieved carbon and plastic neutrality, offsetting one hundred percent of its carbon and plastic pollution — an unusual step for a roaster of its size, and one that reflects Dan's longstanding environmental concern.

On the On the Ground board, Dan brings the perspective of a buyer who has spent two decades working out what a coffee company owes to the places it sources from. He serves as an unpaid director of the organization.