Nestlé to Launch Fairtrade certified coffee

07/10/05 Nestlé is to launch a Fairtrade certified coffee in a new sustainability initiative for smallholder coffee farmers. NESCAFÉ Partners Blend is a high quality, soluble, freeze-dried instant coffee and will be on sale in the UK from the middle of October.

NESCAFÉ Partners Blend is a high quality coffee made from 100 per cent Arabica beans from two of the world's renowned coffee bean growing countries, El Salvador and Ethiopia. Nestlé research indicates that the product will appeal to a new consumer group that, while not currently regular purchases of Fairtrade coffee, are predisposed to fair trade and/or sustainable products.

Nestlé is the world's largest direct buyer of coffee and has been directly collaborating with coffee farmers for over 30 years - since the first Nestlé coffee agronomist was hired to work in the field. In 2002 the company co-founded the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative and has been working closely with farmers to encourage and implement sustainable approaches to coffee growing. Over the years this work has evolved into a sustainable approach concentrating on three important areas - economic, social and environmental.

Nestlé is now applying its learnings over the past 30 years in each of these three areas to help individual communities. Its farmer suppliers for Partners' Blend are all smallholders from El Salvador and Ethiopia who have been adversely affected by the regular fluctuations in coffee prices.

In El Salvador Nestlé is working with over 200 smallholders in four Fairtrade certified co-operatives to fortify their business and management skills and promote sustainable practices. In Ethiopia the company has now established a trading relationship with the Oromia Co-operative Union - a longstanding and highly respected Fairtrade producer organisation. It is also working on sustainability with farmers in the Hama area of Yirgacheffe and is exploring with the Fairtrade Foundation how these farmers might also achieve Fairtrade certification so that their beans can also be included in NESCAFE Partners' Blend in the future.

The product is sourced according to internationally agreed criteria established by the Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International and the product has been approved to carrying the Fairtrade Mark which provides an independent assurance to consumers. This means the coffee comes from producer organisations that have been certified to Fairtrade social, economic and environmental standards and that the traders involved in the supply chain have been registered with Fairtrade and agree to abide by its trading standards.