Last week I went to the Cafédirect AGM with Rachel our Customer Account Manager for Latin America.

Although their supermarket sales are falling as many stores beat off competition by discounting their own brands, it has still been a hugely successful year for this pioneering organisation.

Seeing strong growth in their products sold in other outlets such as coffee shops and corner shops, this ‘out of home’ market as it is called, now represents 25% of their sales. Cafédirect is wisely aiming to target universities and schools to reduce their reliance on supermarket sales even further.

They are now working with 260,000 farmers and have raised £1.4 million through their producer support fund. What is even better about this news is that the producers themselves will have full control of these finances moving forward.

Higher awareness of their brand would improve the situation even further. Apparently, outside of the fair trade movement, only 5% of the population here recognises their coffee and only a further 2% is familiar with their line of tea. However, considering Cafédirect set up in 1991 with shipments from Mexico, Peru and Costa Rica, it has expanded rapidly, now working across Africa, Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean.

Nonetheless, Cafédirect has never forgotten its roots and continues to work with the same fair trade organisations today; and with recognition of the Fairtrade mark on the increase, there is an even brighter future ahead for these farmers.

At the AGM we met with representatives of COOCAFE of Costa Rica, CECOCAFEN of Nicaragua, PRODECOOP also of Nicaragua, CAC Bagua Grande of Peru and Gumuntindo of Uganda.

As always, hearing their stories was a heartwarming reminder of why Shared Interest exists. One comment that immediately springs to mind is Merling Preza of PRODECOOP saying that “behind every cup of coffee is a family.”

Tasting my afternoon cup of coffee, I thought of the process from bean to cup. The farmers that cared for it, picked it by hand, washed it, processed it and all the many steps taken along the line until I finally savoured the final product.

One of the big challenges for the farmers is the impact of climate change and Raymond from KNCU in Africa talked about how unpredictable the rains were becoming in his region. Either there was not enough rainfall or far too much and this of course has a catastrophic impact on the farmers’ harvests. This is a problem fair trade alone cannot solve but there is a programme to get farmers to diversify into other crops to spread the risk and not be reliant on tea or coffee.

But for now, literally millions of families do depend on us drinking our afternoon cuppa and the work of Cafédirect is improving those lives and working to expand so they can touch even more.

Their new packaging should help us feel even more in tune with their work as tea and coffee producers will be depicted on products due to hit the shelves here by the end of April.

At Shared Interest we will continue to stock up on Cafédirect products for the office and I continually encourage friends, family and contacts to do the same.

Oh, and by the way, their hot chocolate is to die for….

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