Melitta USA Donating Pourover Profits to Barista Relief Effort Go Fund Bean

Pourover brewers in the Melitta Signature series, introduced in 2017. File photo.

To assist out-of-work baristas, Melitta USA has announced it is donating 100 percent of the profits from the sale of its pourover products through  shoponline.melitta.com over a three-month period to the Go Fund Bean relief effort.

A grassroots platform to point people to donation channels for individual coffee shops and their workers, Go Fund Bean was created by Adam JacksonBey and others soon after shelter at home recommendations began sweeping the United States and forcing coffee retailers to reduce or eliminate operations.

Since that time, there has ostensibly been an uptick in demand for home brewing equipment. Famous for its filters that typically work in concert with automatic home brewers, Melitta also makes its line of manual pourover products available online and through major retailers throughout the U.S. This relief effort will be tied to online sales through Melitta’s own website.

The company said it will be donating all profits from that pourover line from April through June to the more than 250 individual coffee shops now currently listed in the Go Fund Bean database. The company is also encouraging consumers to contribute directly.

“We’re incredibly grateful for Go Fund Bean and other organizations that are stepping in to provide assistance to an integral part of the coffee community that is experiencing significant impact from COVID-19,” Chris Hillman, vice president of marketing at Melitta USA said in an announcement of the effort. “It’s great to see the industry banding together to help those in need, and Melitta is proud to be a part of that effort.”

Earlier this month, the Germany-based Melitta Group announced it was restructuring some factory operations in Germany to accommodate the production of millions of protective face masks.

(Editor’s note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that all profits from pourover line sales would go towards the relief effort; however, only sales from Melitta’s website apply. Additionally, this story has been updated to clarify that this is an initiative of Melitta USA, a division of Melitta North America, which is part of the Germany-based Melitta Group.)