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After oil, coffee is the most important commodity in the world. Just like about oil, you may have heard that there will soon be a serious shortage of coffee, and that prices will rise enormously. Of course, no one knows whether that will actually happen, but we would like to reveal a bit more about the story behind your cup of black gold, and sustainable coffee in general.
The price of coffee
We all pay a really low price for coffee. Of course you can already buy a kilo of coffee beans at HEMA or Lidl for about € 7 / kg. But even with our coffees you only pay about € 0.10-0.20 per cup of coffee - depending on the strength of the coffee and the type of coffee. When you think about how much work is required for that cup of coffee, it is almost unimaginable. If only you imagine that ALL coffee berries are manually selected and picked manually… And then all the steps before and after.
Coffee farmers
There are relatively many small coffee farmers active. It is believed that 20 to 25 million coffee farmers produce about 70 percent of the coffee beans. They have seen costs rise sharply in recent years, and incomes have fallen sharply. Coffee has therefore become a poverty product for many farmers. The farmers can invest far too little in their plantation, and this does not benefit the quality of coffee. Many farmers are already growing another product or are moving to the big cities for better jobs. Many of their children do not want to continue the coffee plantation at all. They're not crazy, are they?!
This is because coffee is often a stock market product. Coffee farmers have to accept the prices that the market determines. And believe me, that's not much. Even with well-known certificates relating to 'fairness for the farmer', there is a lot of cheating, and this is often not much better.
New initiatives
Yet, as far as I know, mainly from the 'love of coffee' of truly passionate entrepreneurs, there are more and more innovative initiatives to change this. Coffee roasters who, for example, buy their coffee directly from the farmers or via a cooperative, thus set stricter requirements for the quality of their coffee, but also reward the farmers for this with mutually agreed prices. But also other certification systems directly between farmers from a certain area and cooperatives, which on the one hand set super strict requirements for cultivation, but therefore give coffee farmers a much better price.
Certainly not charity, but tasty and sustainable coffee that is grown with care and for which the farmer at least gets a better price! Win win!
Zwarte Roes and sustainable coffee
We also dream of being able to buy our coffees directly from the farmer and thus contribute to sustainable coffee development. This is certainly our goal, but we are still too small to translate that into a realistic selling price. That is why we like to do business with special importers who do this for us and share our ideas. We like to buy coffees with innovative (often local and small) certification systems.
Here. This is the truth behind your cup of coffee.
For the love of coffee - please let's all do our best to value good coffee, and please let's find it a bit more normal that a nice cup of coffee should cost something. Then rather 2 very good bakkies, than 10 with a dirty story ...
Related: Direct Trade vs. Direct Trade Fair trade coffee
