Dean’s Beans Wins Massachusetts Rural Business of the Year Award

Dean’s Beans Organic Coffee Company built its reputation on a business model that keeps the roasting in Orange, the ownership with the workers, and the buying power tied directly to smallholder coffee cooperatives. That approach helped the rural Massachusetts roaster earn the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Rural Business of the Year award for the state, a recognition that fit a company that has operated continuously since 1993 and now runs as a 100% worker-owned cooperative with 14 owners.

The award lands as a public boost for a coffee company that has tried to make its values part of the product. Dean’s Beans says every coffee it sells is organic, Fair Trade, Kosher, and roasted fresh to order in Orange. The company works directly with partner cooperatives to agree on a fair price, while those co-ops handle harvesting, processing, milling, bagging, and export. Some of those partners are Bird Friendly Certified through the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, giving the brand an environmental edge as well as a social one.

Beth Spong, who joined Dean’s Beans as chief operating officer in early 2022, helped prepare the company for the transition to worker ownership and became chief executive when founder Dean Cycon retired in 2023. Dean Cycon started the company in 1993 after working as an environmental and indigenous rights lawyer, with a mission to show that a for-profit business could create meaningful change through respect for the earth, the farmer, co-workers, and the consumer. The company says its employee-ownership structure was intentionally built, with support from the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center in 2022 as the transition took shape.

For Massachusetts coffee and small-business watchers, the SBA honor pointed to something bigger than a single trophy. It recognized a rural manufacturer that has kept production local for decades, sustained jobs in Orange, and remained competitive while building a specialty coffee brand around mission as much as margin. The SBA’s National Small Business Week awards are part of a long-running federal program that recognizes entrepreneurs and small business owners across all 50 states and U.S. territories. For 2026, National Small Business Week was scheduled for May 3 to May 9, with winners recognized at a national ceremony in Washington, D.C. on May 3. With the Massachusetts district office covering all 14 counties in the state, the award gave the company’s rural footprint statewide significance.