Ethics and Sourcing
Environment
Having built our foundations as a family business, we take great care in working alongside ethically conscious business’. As a business we take pride in using post- consumer recycled plastics and fully recyclable carbon-neutral packaging and making mindful choices to help reduce the environmental impact on the wider coffee industry.
One way in which we manage our waste is by donating our used coffee sacks to a local organisation who upcycle these hessian sacks to prevent them going to waste sites. Another method of managing our waste comes in the form of silver skin, also known as ‘chaff’ which gets collected by members of our local community who use it for animal’s bedding which prevents this by-product of coffee from going to any waste sites.
Sourcing
We carefully select and source our coffees from farms and cooperatives that are focused on a better, more sustainable and long lasting future for their communities. By working with green importers who share our same values allows us to play our part in making a change within the coffee supply chain at every level. We are proud to work with importers such as Raw Material, Cofinet, Equatorial Traders (formerly Kamba), Volcafe, DR Wakefield, Sucafina, Algrano, Ally Coffee and Covoya to name but a few of the great companies who we work with to build long lasting relationships. Below is a small insight into a handful of our green importing partners;
Our Partners
Raw Material
Raw Material are a social enterprise, not for profit organisation who put farmers first in everything they do. As part of their approach Raw Material use a ‘counterfactual’ approach which means that they operate under theory based impact which implements a high level of integrity during each stage of their work. Raw Material say that “Theory-based impact evaluation involves mapping out the causal chain from inputs to outcomes and testing the underlying assumptions.” Which in turn means that they are able to protect their relationships allowing them to build long lasting sustainable relationships amongst farmers.
Cofinet
Cofinet is a family business of 80 years who specialise in importing high quality, ethically sourced Colombian and Peruvian coffee. One of the huge benefits of working with Cofinet is the fact that they have built trusted links within coffee growing communities within Colombia and Peru which they have worked with for prolonged periods of time which has allowed them to set up different projects all with the sole idea of benefitting the farmers. One of the projects they run involves a water conservation scheme which focus’ on protecting water sources in Latin America by shifting their focus to natural and honey processing at their processing centre’s which in turn helps conserve regional clean water supplies.
Covoya
As a greens importer, Covoyas business is built on collaboration. “Covoya” (a match of “collaboration” and “voyage”) highlights the journey behind every cup of coffee, that coffee production and consumption is a collective, ongoing process that involves many parties in the chain working together. In short, it means that coffee is the result of a shared journey and effort across different stages of the coffee journey which allows us all to enjoy our habitual cup of coffee.
Volcafe
Volcafe is a leading global coffee trading company with a rich history dating back to 1851. Volcafe specialises in sourcing, trading, and supplying green coffee from various coffee-producing regions around the world. Volcafe’s main values are based on sustainable profitability and regenerative farming as these are 2 of the most important principles we believe will lead us to a more successful and sustainable specialty coffee industry for years to come.
Working closely with coffee farmers and cooperatives to ensure sustainable practices, quality control, and traceability. Volcafe is known for its commitment to responsible sourcing, environmental stewardship, and delivering high-quality coffee to roasters and businesses across the specialty and commercial coffee markets.
All of our coffees are fully traceable back to origin and also include detailed information cards which provide background on the farmers who have produced these great products as we believe that exploring new coffees is an exciting experience and we want you to be as informed as possible when deciding on your next morning’s cup. We wouldn’t be able to provide so much information on our coffee’s if it wasn’t for working with such companies as above who go above and beyond to ensure that quality is what drives our industry whilst ensuring that we can all remain sustainable at each and every stage of the process.