FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Missoula, MT. (June 6, 2006)-Missoula based Cup of Excellence® Executive Director, Susie Spindler, received the coveted True Sustainability Award during the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe’s annual World of Coffee event held in Berne, Switzerland.

“With over 9,000 attendees and several other nominations in this category, I feel very honored to receive this award,” explained Susie Spindler after accepting the award.

The award is based on the work Mrs. Spindler has done in creating and growing the international Cup of Excellence® program for small farmers that produce exemplarily coffees. She has executed the program and has helped to develop it to become the most stringent coffee selection program of its kind.

The Cup of Excellence® program selects the best coffees from a country each year by a national and international panel of highly qualified jurors that blindly cup each coffee over a 3 week process. Each coffee has to score 84 out of 100 possible points in order to move on to the next phase, and the coffees are cupped up to 6 different times. The remaining coffees are then awarded the prestigious Cup of Excellence® award and are auctioned off during a worldwide Internet auction on the Cup of Excellence® website and sold to the highest bidder. 85% of the auction proceeds are returned back to the farmers that produce those award winning coffees and the other 15% of the proceeds are returned back to the producing country to help pay for the program costs.

During the ceremony, Susie Spindler’s nomination screen read, “She is the most hard working and fighting person I know. She will never stop fighting for what is right for the Cup of Excellence® program. She fights fire with fire, and she will never stop for a second if something looks like it is impossible, she walks around it, or over it if she has to.” During this conference Mrs. Spindler was unable to accept the award since she was overseeing the Central American Cup of Excellence® competitions for the entire month of May. A Cup of Excellence® affiliate accepted the award on Susie Spindler’s behalf.

The Cup of Excellence® program is owned and managed by the non-profit Missoula Montana based Alliance for Coffee Excellence in partnership with producing counties. The program has held 27 competitions to date with in 7 different countries in Central and South America. To learn more about the program, the auction process, to become a member, or to view the latest competition results log onto www.cupofexcellence.org.