by Molly Szymanski
Walking through the University of Maryland’s farmers market at Tawes Plaza, patrons pass vendors selling everything from jewelry to produce. One of them, though, has a goal— to make the DMV greener one cup of coffee at a time.
Cosmos Roastery made its way to the Farmers Market this September. Air Force veteran Donnie Hill founded the company earlier this year to provide a local, sustainable alternative to commercial coffee companies. They are the first all-electric, emission-free specialty coffee roaster in the state.
Hill’s passion for coffee came to him while he was stationed in Sacramento, Calif.
“It became my ritual to try local, independent coffee shops over the course of assignments in California and Nevada. I still get a warm and fuzzy feeling whenever I hang out in a good café,” he said.
After hopping from coffee shop to coffee shop on the West Coast, he found himself in Rockville, Md., where he discovered the Be Green Business initiative at Bethesda Green, a sustainable community initiative geared towards green living. And thus, Cosmos was born.
“I knew that I wanted to hold onto the sense of mission I had on active duty in the Air Force; that mission is sustainability in the coffee world,” Hill said.
Cosmos Roastery dedicates itself to sustainability in multiple forms. Its packaging is compostable, and it uses 100% renewable energy during the roasting process and in its booths at various farmers markets, including UMD’s.
It roasts using a brand of coffee roaster called Bellwether, which runs on zero-emission electric energy. It’s easy to use and ensures that his business practices don’t harm the environment, Hill said.
Cosmos sources its coffee from Verified Living Income, an organization that guarantees that the coffee farmers get fair wages and a quality standard of living.
“Most people just grab coffee from their grocery store that isn’t sustainably sourced, which leads to funding things like deforestation and unfair labor practices,” Katie Quinn, a UMD Farmers Market employee and sophomore agronomy major said. “With Cosmos, people in the community are able to see how they can make their favorite drink even better by supporting the planet.”
And they do. UMD’s Farmers Market is his most profitable outlet, Hill said.
Cosmos sells whole bean and ground coffee with a variety of different roasts, flavor notes and origins, each fitted with its own spacey name like Discovery, Enterprise, or Endeavor. At farmers markets, Cosmosalso sells hot coffee for students rushing to class.
“I think Cosmos is providing an excellent product at reasonable prices for the consumer that places emphasis on the social and environmental responsibility associated with their coffee,” said Ford Ramsey, Hill’s friend and assistant professor of agricultural and professor of applied economics at Virginia Tech.
With business growing week by week at the farmers market, Hill is slowly working towards growing the business, as well as himself as an entrepreneur. Nearly everything he’s learned about business has been in these past few months running Cosmos, he said. Now that he’s found his target audience— sustainability-driven young people— he’s hoping to branch out.
“Business has been good since launching sales in August…or at least I think it’s been good,” Hill said. “I’m now making enough revenue to cover costs and am seriously researching growth opportunities [like a] commercial space or coffee truck.”
Featured image: Donnie Hill is on a mission to make coffee greener. Photo by Molly Szymanski.