Alexandra Kennon
Right off of the stop-and-go hubbub of Canal, Gravier Street’s sunlight is blocked by crepe myrtles instead of palms, and everything quiets. It is here that you’ll find one of the oldest coffee importers in the country.
It’s easy to miss Westfeldt Brothers. The century-old building doesn’t ask to be seen. But the business has been importing coffee from this spot since before the Civil War. On this nondescript street, the family business continues on as one of the last of its kind in the Central Business District neighborhood.
Founder Gustavus Adolphus George Westfeldt moved from Sweden to Mobile, Alabama in 1835 to act as Sweden’s ambassador in the United States. Central and South American diplomats who Westfeldt had connections with inspired him to start his coffee business in 1851, one of the first in the United States to import green, or unroasted, coffee beans. Two years later, he moved to New Orleans, where the coffee import market was booming. He invited his two brothers, who were still living in Sweden, to join him in the Crescent City, where together they created Westfeldt Brothers. The company was a quick success, thanks to the brothers’ close relationship with Brazilian importers, their diplomatic relationship with Sweden, and New Orleans’s status as one of the biggest port cities at the time.
In 2018, the current CEO of Westfeldt Brothers, Thomas Westfeldt, passed down the position of president to his daughter, Shelby Westfeldt Mills, who is a sixth-generation Westfeldt in New Orleans and the first woman in the family to take on the role. Mills describes her family’s company as “a really unique niche in the industry.”
Upon arrival at Westfeldt Brothers, one is greeted by the nutty aroma of roasting coffee. Across from the “roasting room” are sacks of coffee beans bearing the names of countries from across the world. Upstairs you’ll find workers keeping a close eye on their computers and a television screen, where they watch as coffee prices rise and fall.
From Westfeldt’s international selection of coffee beans, coffee businesses can select and mix together flavor profiles to create their own distinct blend.
“Good times and bad times, people want to buy coffee,” Shelby said. “That's always gonna be there.”
“We're kind of like a grocery store,” Mills said. “If you're going to make a cake and you want to buy all the ingredients for the cake, you wouldn't want to go to just one store that only sold eggs and then go to another place that only sold flour.”
International coffee importers will send samples of coffee beans to Westfeldt Brothers, which are then brought to their “cupping room” to ensure the price, taste, and appearance meet criteria. Once the samples are approved, the coffee beans are shipped to warehouses across the United States, where they are roasted, packaged, and sold to grocery stores, coffee shops, and restaurants.
The historic Westfeldt Brothers location was originally chosen because of its close proximity to the New Orleans Board of Trade, which would post the market prices of coffee on a massive chalkboard. In the 1970s and '80s, Mills’s father would take walks there every two hours to write down the price of coffee so the family business could stay up-to-date on the fluctuating market. Before the Internet, workers from different countries would send telegrams to Westfeldt Brothers to keep them informed about poor weather conditions on the farms.
Though the company makes good use of the advanced technological resources available in this digital age, they continue to rely on face-to-face interactions to build and maintain connections with their partners. Regularly, staff members take business trips to Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras to see the places where their coffee is grown and meet the farmers themselves, observing first-hand the various challenges each operation faces in the process of growing and delivering their products.
“It really starts with the relationships we have at the source, and that is how we've managed to stay relevant and in business for so long,” Shelby said, also noting the timeless perseverance inherent in a product like theirs—which has helped sustain the company through national crises ranging from the Civil War, to Hurricane Katrina, to the recent pandemic.
“Good times and bad times, people want to buy coffee,” Shelby said. “That's always gonna be there.”
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