Nespresso and Fairtrade International to support Colombian cooperatives

Harriet Lamb, CEO of Fairtrade International, and Jean-Marc Duvoisin, CEO of Nestlé Nespresso, have announced a new, long-reaching partnership to benefit thousands of small-scale coffee farmers. The announcement comes as Nespresso celebrates ten years of their Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Program, focused on improving quality and sustainability for farmers and their communities, Fairtrade reports. (Picture: Fairtrade coffee farmers)
 
Nespresso already sources from five Fairtrade certified cooperatives in the region of Caldas, Columbia under the AAA Sustainable Quality Program. These cooperatives, comprising 7,000 small-scale farmers, were the first to join the Nespresso program in 2004. “By 2020 we aim to make a further contribution to smallholder farmer welfare through our program by working with Fairtrade and our other partners,” Jean-Marc Duvoisin explains. As the AAA Farmer Future Program develops and impact becomes apparent, Nespresso and Fairtrade will look to extend the partnership to other regions. The overall program comprises over 56,000 smallholder farmers representing 80% of Nespresso’s total coffee volume.
 

Coffee is one of Fairtrade’s largest and most important products, with over 400,000 mt of certified volume and 128,000 mt of consumer sales in 2012 across 25 different countries from USA, Europe to South Korea and, more recently, Brazil and South Africa. Today, Fairtrade works with around 500,000 coffee farmers, across 31 countries, with around 75% of Fairtrade exports coming from Latin America, including Colombia, renowned for its high quality coffees.
 

Fairtrade Foundation