Members of the Organization Convention of the National Coffee Roasters Association, St. Louis, May 26, 1911
Reading from left to right: W.B. Johnson, St. Louis; W.T. Jones, New Orleans; George Schulte, St. Louis; C.F. Blanke, St. Louis; Ben Casanas, New Orleans; Carl Stoffregen, St. Louis; Edward D. Hanly, Kansas City; H.C. Grote, St. Louis; James Menown, St. Louis; Frank P. Atha, Kansas City; Henry Petring, St. Louis; J.M. McFadden, Dubuque, Iowa; Joseph Maury, Memphis; T.F. Halligan, Davenport; F.J. Ach, Dayton; Carl Brand, Cleveland; Wm. Fisher, St. Louis; M.H. Gasser, Toledo; Julius J. Schotten, St. Louis; E.W. Bockman, Paducah, Ky.; Louis Christopherson, St. Louis; Felix Coste, St. Louis; W.E. Tone, Des Moines; Robert Meyer, St. Louis; Fred Roth, St. Louis; M.E. Smith. St. Louis; J.B. Dubrouilett, St. Louis; Floyd Norwine, St. Louis
As early as 1900, leaders of the trade's best thought began to urge the need of a national organization among coffee roasters.
As a result of informal meetings between men like Robert M. Forbes, Julius J. Schotten, Robert Meyer, and Messrs. Roth and Homeyer, around the luncheon table in St. Louis, to discuss trade abuses and bring about better trade co-operation, the subject of a St. Louis organization of coffee roasters began to be agitated about 1906. It was not until four years later, however, that the idea took definite form.
On September 14, 1910, the Traffic Association of St. Louis Coffee Importers was organized, starting out with a membership of ten firms, its chief object being to obtain an adjustment of freight rates to and from St. Louis as advantageous as those prevailing for Chicago and New York.
This association—of which Robert Meyer was the first president, and H.L. Homeyer, vice-president, J.S. Hartman, secretary, and G.H. Petring, treasurer—was the forerunner of the National Coffee Roasters Traffic and Pure Food Association organized in 1911 and now known as the National Coffee Roasters Association.
At the organization meeting of the national association twenty-six coffee-roasting establishments in the Mississippi Valley were represented at the conference held May 26–27 in the Planters Hotel, St. Louis. The objects of the new body were announced in the constitution, as:
First: To foster and promote a feeling of fellowship and good will among its members, and on broad and equitable lines to advance the welfare of the coffee trade and the consumer.
Second: To eliminate or minimize abuses, methods and practises inimical to the proper conduct of business.
Third: To assist in the enactment and enforcement of uniform pure food laws which in their operations shall deal justly and equitably with the rights of the consumer and the trade.