When he woke on March 26 to the news that Baltimore’s Key Bridge had collapsed, Michael Haft, co-founder of Compass Coffee, dialed his chief operating officer.
“You have to reroute all of our coffee immediately,” Haft recalled saying.
The collapse upended the supply chain for the D.C.-based roaster, which imports most of its beans through the Port of Baltimore. The crash is expected to cause delays and extra costs for many other businesses that rely on the port, which is responsible for about 52 million tons of imports and exports annually. The U.S. Small Business Administration has received more than 1,000 loan applications in response to the upheaval.
