A
Brief History
Sixteen years ago, Green
Mountain Coffee Roasters hung its shingle on the front of
a small café in Waitsfield, Vermont. This café roasted
coffee on the premises and formed the base of operations
for what was to become one of the nation's leading
specialty coffee companies. The demand for high-quality,
freshly roasted coffee soon grew beyond the café's
walls. Restaurants and inns in the area asked for coffee
and equipment. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was soon in
the wholesale business to satisfy these requests. Before
long, skiers asked if the café could send Green Mountain
Coffee to their homes in New York, Florida, Pennsylvania
or Connecticut. This demand was filled by the birth of
the company's mail-order business.  
Green Mountain, Inc. is now publicly owned (NASDAQ:
NM: GMCR) and had sales in excess
of $38 million for the fiscal year ended September 28,
1996. The majority of these sales are generated by the
company's wholesale business which serves more than 5,000
customer accounts, primarily on the East Coast.
Green Mountain's mail-order catalog is mailed to
customers nationally and may be found in the seatbacks on
the Delta Shuttle, Delta Express and Amtrak trains
serving the Northeast corridor. The company now has 12
company-owned retail stores in Vermont, Connecticut,
Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and New
York. Eight of these stores roast coffee on the premises.
Environmental
Commitment
GMCR's Environmental Committee
was established in 1989. Composed of employees, the
committee explores the many ways our corporate
environmental vision can affect our business practices,
and supervises the company's extensive on-site recycling
program. 
In 1992, GMCR
launched its Stewardship® line of
coffees
which are grown and harvested with proper care
and respect for the land and its workers. Green Mountain
employees travel to coffee farms to evaluate the farm
management and quality of the coffee. Strong relations
have been established with the growers of six
Stewardship® coffees in Hawaii, Mexico, Costa Rica,
Peru, Guatemala and Colombia. In 1997 Green Mountain
funded construction of a beneficio and hydro plant for 16
coffee-farming families in Peru.
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GMCR
in the Community
In May, 1995, the company was
presented the 1994 Dean C. Davis Outstanding Vermont
Business Award by the Vermont State Chamber of Commerce.
In 1997, Green Mountain received the New
Englander Award for Innovation, which is
presented by the Smaller Business Association of New
England. The company supports organizations like United
Way, Salvation Army and Red Cross as well as libraries,
religious organizations, schools, counseling centers and
community food-shelters.
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters extends beyond local
communities to globally-oriented organizations such as
Coffee Kids®, Conservation International and The Rain
Forest Alliance. A percentage of the company's net
profits from the sale of its Rain Forest Nut™
coffees is donated to Conservation International and to
The Rain Forest Alliance, organizations dedicated to
preservation of the world's rain forests.
 The past
sixteen years have been years of growth and success for
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. During this period the
company has developed strong relations with employees,
the communities where employees live and work, with its
stockholders, and with its coffee producers and their
communities. From the strong foundation which was put in
place in 1981, the company continues to grow.

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