Our Story

Unchained began long before I was born 46 years ago in Huila, Colombia.

It started in the 1970s, when my father—still a young man—bought a coffee farm in Huila, Colombia. A few years later, he sold it. Coffee wasn’t profitable. The system didn’t work for farmers, and it pushed him out.

My first memory of coffee isn’t a cup.

It’s the smell of fermentation. I was a child—maybe two or three years old—visiting one of my father’s former neighbors. That smell stayed with me. It still does.

Years later, work took me across Huila, Colombia’s largest coffee-producing region. I met thousands of coffee growers in their homes. I listened to their stories. Their fears. Their hopes. And everywhere I went, I saw the same reality: poverty. Generations trapped in a system where hard work never translated into stability, dignity, or opportunity.

Coffee farmers producing one of the most desired products in the world—yet unable to retire, educate their children, access healthcare, or even repair their homes.

I couldn’t unsee it.

While living in Bogotá and pursuing graduate studies, I began to research the coffee industry deeply. For two years, I studied academic papers, market structures, and trade models.

The conclusion was clear: the coffee system was designed for everyone in the chain to profit—except the producer. Farmers were kept isolated, underpaid, and disconnected from destination markets.

I didn’t yet know how to change it, but I knew it had to change.

I started by selling coffee on street corners in Bogota. Eventually, life brought me to the United States. Here, I worked across different companies and roles, finally seeing the other side of the market—pricing, inventories, importers, consumer behavior, and margins. I saw how much value coffee creates. And that value wasn’t wrong. What was wrong was where it stopped.

It never reached the people who grow the coffee.

That’s when Unchained took shape.

By removing unnecessary intermediaries and redesigning the supply chain, coffee growers can become direct exporters of their own work—creating value for themselves, on their own terms. Unchained exists to transfer knowledge, unlock markets, and break the barriers that have kept producers out for generations.

This may not be the only path forward, but it is an honest one.

Transparent by design, built to change who wins in coffee.

Because when you break the chain, you change everything.

Fabio Gaitan, Founder.