Every year, the conversations around sustainability increase, and the pressure is ever-growing from consumers and stakeholders for brands to truly act to futureproof our coffee and tea industries, as well as the planet itself, for future generations. This special section of our annual Sustainability Issue highlights some of the work and projects tea and coffee brands are undertaking to enact long-lasting change and impact. By Kathryn Brand

Efforts at origin

Clipper Teas is the United Kingdom’s first and longest-standing Fairtrade tea partner, values which have been intertwined with the brand since its inception. Clipper shares its mission with Fairtrade to raise awareness of the benefits of sustainable farming for people and the planet, informing its decision to also be certified organic. This year, Clipper launched its There’s Tea, Then There’s GOOD Tea campaign across Europe, aiming to highlight its brand story and show that it takes more than just taste to make good tea, specifically ethical and sustainable growing practices. At Clipper, this means supporting tea estates and smaller farms to become more sustainable, while paying workers fairer wages, including the Fairtrade Premium, which communities can spend in areas they decide are most needed.

Recently, Clipper’s Fairtrade Premium was used to fund an ambulance for a Mozambique tea estate. Over the past three decades, Clipper has contributed an estimated GBP £6.8 million to the Fairtrade Premium, and much of the tea bought by Clipper today is the same as 25 years ago, since when Clipper has supported the farms to become biodiverse and wildlife-friendly. Long-standing support and nurtured relationships with tea farmers is essential to their sustainability.

Sustainability at origin is not only crucial for the continuation and success of tea production, but for the people in the tea growing communities. This is evidenced in DavidsTea’s Nepal Water Project. The Canada-based tea brand recognises that clean water is not just a fundamental human right, but the essence of its product, from nurturing the Camellia sinensis plant, to brewing a cup of tea. DavidsTea has aligned itself with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 6, which aims to ensure the availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. DavidsTea has joined forces with Jun Chiyabari, a key partner from which the company sources its Organic Nepal Black Tea, to tackle the clean drinking water issue in Jun Chiyabari Tea Garden in Nepal’s Dhunkuta district. The local government schools, crucial for the education and well-being of the community’s children, suffer from a lack of clean drinking water. This not only hampers the health of the students and staff but also affects their overall educational experience.

The collaboration began during DavidsTea’s 2020 Giving Week, in which it dedicated five percent of all loose leaf tea sales on 28 November to find clean water initiatives in Nepal. Jun Chiyabari then matched DavidsTea’s contribution, allowing it to expand the project to encompass not just three but four schools. In August 2021, Phase 1 was completed: the installation of sustainable water filtration systems in four schools, impacting over 3,200 children and staff. In March 2022, DavidsTea continued its commitment to the project, directing one percent of the proceeds from its Organic Nepal Black Tea to the mission, allowing it to begin Phase 2 in March 2024, through which it is aiming to bring clean water to two additional schools. This latest phase is expected to reach a further 862 students and staff across six schools in seven buildings.

Last year, illycaffè launched the first coffee produced through 100 percent regenerative agriculture. Brasile Arabica Selection Cerrado Mineiro is Regenagri certified, a third-party programme that certifies regenerative agriculture claims. It supports farms and organisations to transition to holistic farming techniques that increase soil organic matter, encourage biodiversity, sequester CO₂ and improve water and energy management. Italy-based illycaffè believes investing in the people who grow coffee is just as crucial in protecting the ecosystem and so funds a number of initiatives that further this goal:

• The Seeds for Progress Foundation helps to build new schools and offers training for teachers in Nicaragua;
• Reforestation in Colombia works to restore native vegetation, clean groundwater and improve the living environments for coffee growers;
• Farmer Field School is supporting women in Rwanda since 2019 when illycaffè financed the acquisition of a coffee plantation and planted around 2,500 certified-quality coffee plants to function as a Farmer Field School for 40 women coffee producers;
• Viveiro de Atitude programme helped build nursery housing for over 100 plant species in Brazil, preserving biodiversity and water resources as well as promoting environmental education in the country.

illy is investing in quality research and collaborating with a research project to: sequence the genome of Arabica coffee to help coffee growers adapt their plants to the changing climate conditions; it is building long-lasting relationships with growers based on knowledge-sharing and sustainable growth; and implementing a new certification protocol for coffee procurement, monitoring supply chains, guaranteeing the quality of the product, and protecting the environment and worker safety.

Pact Coffee has been fundraising reforestation projects and working only with farmers that follow sustainable practices for years, but in 2020 launched Cenicafé 1, a coffee variety developed over 20 years by the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC). As the world heats up, many Arabica coffee varieties struggle to grow. These warmer temperatures also bring a higher likelihood of disease to coffee plants, plus the conditions that plant-killing pests thrive in. It’s a problem that’s forcing farmers to go higher up into the mountains, causing deforestation and economic hardship. Cenicafé 1 is resistant to a number of fungal diseases, can be grown all over Colombia, and offers a high density of coffee cherries, giving farmers greater harvests on small amounts of land. It has quickly achieved high cupping scores and this year Pact launched its first limited edition Cenicafé 1 from the Buenos Aires farm. UK-based Pact is working to widen the recognition of Cenicafé 1 to increase demand for the variety worldwide and show Colombian farmers that there’s a profitable future in a sustainable variety on their existing farms.

To assess and improve conditions across the global community of coffee growers, Peet’s Coffee has partnered with Enveritas. The non-profit organisation uses technology combining AI and satellite imagery with on-the-ground surveys to: conduct 20,000 sustainability audits of smallholders each year; invest in over 30 different impact projects spanning Central America, South America, and the Indo-Pacific; work with World Coffee Research to provide funding for genetic conservation of coffee; have 24 countries verified by Enveritas for responsible sourcing; and, as part of JDE Peet’s, work towards fully validated science-based targets to contribute effectively to the fight against climate change and be at the forefront of deforestation prevention and restoration.

California-based Peet’s engages with Enveritas each year to evaluate the impacts of its projects: in Guatemala, the company has partnered with TechnoServe to train smallholder coffee farmers in overcoming agronomic and economic hurdles impeding their businesses and livelihoods; in the biodiversity hotspot, Finca Don Bosco, Panama, Peet’s collaborates with Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center to protect migratory songbirds by ensuring canopy cover, tree height, and biodiversity; and Peet’s has constructed the Butterfly School Papua New Guinea Bunum-Wo Estate, serving as educational enrichment and health care learning for nearly 200 young children of the farm’s workforce and the surrounding community.

Despite challenges such as climate change and economic instability, over the past year, 99.7 percent of Traditional Medicinals’ herbs were certified organic, and 30.1 percent were fair-certified. The California-based company advised on the creation of the FairWild standard and Foundation, which sets standards for sustainable wild collections of medicinal plants, ensuring that plant material is harvested ethically, sustainably and transparently. Traditional Medicinals has set a goal of sourcing 80 percent fair-certified herbs by 2030, to which its Fair for Life certification marks significant progress. This year, the company has reinvested over USD $174,000 in fair premiums into source communities, a 10.6 percent increase from the previous year. Traditional Medicinals has invested a further $2 million to origin community projects, local non-profits and certification standards. In Zimbabwe, 4,000 people gained access to safe drinking water, 510 farmers in Madagascar were trained in sustainable agricultural practices, and 2,300 women in Egypt participated in health education.

In-House and the community

Birchall Tea has opened its brand-new fully solar-powered tea factory in Wiltshire, England. Its roof-top solar installation features more than 460 solar panels, which are capable of generating all the clean renewable electricity for its on-site operations. The purpose built, state of the art tea factory generates so much energy, that it even puts power back into the National Grid. In addition to this, in May 2020, Birchall achieved the Carbon Neutral International Standard, which means that all of its products are 100 percent carbon neutral.

Similarly, Equator Coffees has reduced its carbon emissions by 80 percent per roasted coffee batch through its investment in energy-efficient Loring Smart Roasters. Other sustainable practices Equator undertakes in its roastery include donating its burlap coffee bags to local farms, composting its chaff locally, and upcycling coffee excess with Extrafood. For its cafés, the California-based company is always looking out for partnerships and resources to improve its sustainability efforts. In 2023, Equator launched its Too Good To Go programme in five of its cafés, aiming to fight food waste by providing surplus food to customers at a reduced price. Equator plans to expand the programme across as many of its retail locations as possible. It continues to encourage its customers to get their drinks in for-here serve ware and use their own reusable cups in its cafés, offering a USD $0.25 discount for customers who bring their own cups, both of which have seen a significant use increase since 2022. The to-go cups and containers that Equator does offer are 100 percent compostable.

Sustainable packaging has long-been a priority for illy. Its cans and tins are made from recyclable metal, and it has recently launched its new certified ESE compostable coffee pods which come in illy’s three blends: Classico, Intenso and Decaffeinato. illy was also the first Italian coffee company to obtain a B-Corp certification.

Little’s is addressing packaging sustainability by becoming the first instant coffee company in UK supermarkets to go 100 percent plastic free. Its coffee pods and ground coffee bags are fully recyclable while its jars are of UK-made glass and aluminium lids. In 2022, Little’s moved its coffee capsule manufacturing from Europe to the UK so that all Little’s roasting and pod manufacturing is done in its on-site roaster, meaning it can both reduce its carbon footprint and be certain of good practices. As a result, the brand is on its way to being carbon neutral.

Since July 2023, Pact Coffee pouches have all been 100 percent recyclable. By being made from a single material, the bag is much easier to recycle into new plastics, and its low-density plastic design using a high proportion of recycled materials ensures it uses as little new plastic as possible. These bags also fund the ‘this bag saves’ project, which stops plastic bottles from entering our oceans. For every kilogramme of packaging purchased, ‘this bag saves’ recovers and recycles the equivalent of two plastic bottles from Asian rivers. Pact explains it chose this option over ‘compostable’ alternatives because around 90 percent of people in the UK do not have the means to compost at home, and compostable packaging can take years to break down, meaning most ends up in landfill or food waste, where it blocks the recycling process. Pact’s carbon footprint is then offset by SeaTrees, a project which protects and regenerates coastal eco-system by planting and restoring aquatic plants that are highly effective in absorbing carbon.

Fostering a better balance between nature and people is something Traditional Medicinals is working towards, with its Traditional Medicinals Foundation. The mission of the foundation is to help people live consciously connected to nature through two pillars: making herbal education accessible and fostering a mindset of stewardship through interacting with nature and conserving resources.

In 2023, Traditional Medicinals aligned with the Science Based targets initiative (SBTi), aiming to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42 percent by 2030, and achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The company also conducted a natural capital impact assessment that enabled it to identify, measure, and value direct and indirect impacts and dependencies on natural capital. The framework is crucial for understanding the dynamic relationships between organisations and the health of the natural world, which critically informs decision-making.

BioSense capsule. Image: AluSense

Suppliers commit to a greener future

As with the brands and companies they work with, suppliers to the coffee and tea industry are also passionate about utilising sustainable practices throughout the supply chain. This dedication to sustainability is reflected in multiple ways such as ethical sourcing, environmental protection, climate adaptation, energy efficiency and waste reduction. Below is a sampling of coffee and tea suppliers, which through their sustainable practices, are contributing to a healthier planet and a more sustainable future. By Aubrye McDonagh Leigh

IMA Coffee is committed to increasing sustainable practices to reduce roasting emissions and test alternative packaging materials, implementing advanced eco-friendly solutions throughout the industrial process to rise to the challenge of coffee sustainability. Over the past few years, IMA’s approach to sustainability has led to the design and adaptation of packaging technologies to effectively handle compostable materials, in collaboration with important partners in the field.

Recently, Italy-based IMA Coffee, in partnership with Minnesota-based NatureWorks, a leading manufacturer of polylactic acid (PLA) biopolymers made from renewable resources, developed a new compostable coffee pod solution compatible with Keurig brewers for the North American market. For the rigid capsule body, NatureWorks was able to combine non-compounded, highly crystalline, and heat resistant Ingeo PLA grades with a refined single-stage thermoforming process to achieve production rates comparable to incumbent polypropylene (PP) capsules. The rigid thermoformed capsule was then combined with a non-woven filter and multi-layer top lidding solution, also made with Ingeo. The use of one primary material through all three components of a coffee pod is more cost effective and offers greater consistency when heat sealing the components together, thus preserving the taste and aroma of the enclosed coffee.

The collaboration between NatureWorks and IMA, bolstered by IMA OPENLab, the group’s network of technological laboratories and testing facilities, laid the groundwork for a new market-ready coffee pod solution. Multiple studies and tests on the new compostable material and its performance throughout the packaging process have led to the proper configuration of IMA’s coffee-pod filling and sealing machines, enabling them to handle the rigid capsule, filter, and multi-layered top lid made of Ingeo PLA biopolymer with high precision. This will facilitate the easy setup of new production lines, thereby offering a turnkey compostable and sustainable solution at high production speeds, ensuring high-quality brewing.

With the world’s largest production capacity for empty Nespresso-compatible aluminium coffee capsules, AluSense products are distributed in over 80 countries. The Belgium-based company offered the first capsule made from 80 percent recycled aluminium, boasting CO₂-neutral accreditation to ensure zero environmental impact.

AluSense’s latest innovation, BioSense capsules, are 100 percent bio-based and compatible with all Nespresso Original Machines. These empty capsules mark a significant step towards sustainability without compromising on quality. The mono-body design and custom dome shape of BioSense capsules allow for packing over 20 percent more coffee into each capsule, the highest volume in the home-compostable market. These capsules also provide exceptional protection against oxygen and moisture, ensuring coffee retains its rich flavour.

BioSense home-compostable coffee capsules are made entirely from second-generation end-use bio-based materials, free from PLA, plastic, oil, bisphenol A, or fossil fuels. Their fully compostable nature is validated by the OK compost HOME certification. BioSense also holds certifications from Hansecontrol, SGS, TUV, ISSC, and CO₂ Neutral.

Descafeinadores Mexicanos (Descamex)’s sustainability strategy is based on three main pillars: the community, the environment and the people. Its sustainable practices include:

• Certifications: Since 2007, Descamex has been certified by the Rainforest Alliance and Bird Friendly. With these, it directly and indirectly employs better agricultural practices.
• Social Responsibility Badges: Since 2005, the company has maintained the ESR badge (Socially Responsible Company), seeking to promote social responsibility and is one of the three SMEs in Mexico that has had the badge the longest. In 2024, Descamex finalised its SMETA four pillars audit and is now 100 percent compliant.
• Planting of trees: Through its volunteer programme, Descamex planted 135 fruit trees between April 2023 and April 2024.
• Energy efficiency: Descamex uses the energy storage system obtained with cleaner generation methods (hydroelectric) with a monthly impact that stops the emission of 27.6 tons of CO2, equivalent to planting 1,660 trees.
• Waste management: At the end of 2023, Descamex’s recycling rate was 87 percent, the coffee powder generated is donated as fertiliser to the coffee plantation, which improves the soil quality.

Mexico-based Descamex also supports World Coffee Research, which unites the global coffee industry to drive science based agricultural solutions to urgently secure a diverse and sustainable supply of quality coffee today and for generations to come.

Kloth & Köhnken Teehandel GmbH offers fine teas, sophisticated formulations and flavoured/scented tea innovations and has espoused sustainable values since its formation. The Germany-based company believes that sustainable actions cannot be decreed, rather it is a learning process. FairBioTea is a private sector initiative focused on the development of healthy and sustainable, fair and ecological tea production operations and industry. Through its FairBioTea development partnerships, Kloth & Köhnken actively supports Chinese tea farmers who are growing sustainably and improving their quality management.

Since 2007, together with selected tea gardens, Kloth & Köhnken has been helping to make farming more ecological, transparent and sustainable. The company is especially proud of its long-standing cooperations in tea-producing countries where its partners dictate the pace at which they adopt environmentally friendly practices. Through FairBioTea, Kloth & Köhnken establishes a fair and reliable framework for transparent, sustainable tea production, culminating in a premium product.

Most teas Kloth & Köhnken purchases are certified (Rainforest Alliance, Fairtrade, organic and Fairbiotea). Its certified products exceed the EU organic regulations, and their cultivation also encompasses land use and nutrient cycles, which in the long term will help preserve soil fertility.
Additionally, for more than three years, Kloth & Köhnken’s sustainability team has been working to implement all requirements for the new German due diligence law and for the European regulations to come. This includes the Code of Conduct, which defines internal company requirements as well as minimum standards for environmental, social and ethical obligations. The Code of Conduct is the basis for developing a business relationship with Kloth & Köhnken, which supports companies that take care of their business sustainably, treat their employees well and protect the environment.

Furthermore, under the motto ‘K&K Goes Green’, the topic of sustainability will become more of a focus for Kloth & Köhnken and internal processes will be optimised and made more efficient. This includes asking all employees for suggestions and ideas and raising awareness for a more sustainable way of living.

As the world faces unprecedented environmental challenges, the importance of sustainable agricultural practices cannot be overstated. Australian Native Products (ANP) promotes sustainability through its cultivation and processing of lemon myrtle. The Australia-based company’s efforts are not just about meeting market demands but also about ensuring the health of our planet and the well-being of future generations.

ANP’s Environmental Management Policy underscores its commitment to optimising quality produce while enhancing the sustainability of natural agricultural resources. This policy is built on several key pillars:

• Resource Efficiency: Implementing precision farming techniques, optimising irrigation practices, and striving to minimise energy consumption by utilising renewable energy sources whenever possible. Soil conservation measures such as mulching and utilising waste stream materials in composting are also employed.
• Biodiversity Conservation: ANP creates wildlife habitats, maintains natural ecosystems, and minimises the use of pesticides and herbicides that may harm non-target species. Its agricultural practices are designed to support, rather than hinder, biodiversity.
• Waste Reduction: Strategies to reduce, reuse, and recycle farm waste are integral to ANP’s operations, such as composting product waste and minimising packaging waste.

ANP has also implemented a Climate Adaptation Strategy, which involves:

• Climate-Smart Practices: Utilising climate-smart agricultural practices to ensure sustainable production. This includes the use of organic and biodynamic principles to maintain plant health and soil fertility, minimising the need for chemical inputs.
• Carbon Sequestration: ANP farms contribute significantly to carbon sequestration. Its Lemon Myrtle trees absorb substantial amounts of CO₂ annually, helping to mitigate its carbon footprint.

ANP has achieved the Union for Ethical Biotrade (UEBT) and Rainforest Alliance (RA) ingredient certification for its Lemon Myrtle leaf products. Furthermore, ANP ensures that all its organic products meet the highest standards, maintaining the expectations of consumers and complying with a range of organic standards.

Looking ahead, ANP is committed to implementing its Biodiversity Action Plan, exploring adaptable cultivars, and investing in innovation for better processing mechanisms.

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Coffee consumption has doubled over 30 years and continues to rise. Based on current projections, production needs to grow by 25 percent by 2030 in order to satisfy demand, whilst farmers in producing countries are increasingly unable to meet this by simply expanding acreage as competition for land-use intensifies.

Yet coffee remains under threat. Both Arabica and Robusta are particular about growing conditions, with each species growing only in a ”goldilocks zone” of temperature and rainfall. Consequently, coffee is sensitive to changes in conditions. With anthropogenic climate change now unavoidable, even moderate effects could have devastating impacts on many of the world’s current coffee plantations. Further complicating matters, climatic effects could further increase pressure on coffee plants by influencing the range of and damage cause by pests and pathogens including coffee berry borer and leaf rust.

Addressing these challenges requires extensive R&D – USD $452 million per year of it. But there is a potentially lucrative opportunity for innovative farmers, plantation operators, plant breeders, and biotechnologists who can provide solutions. The viability of these undertakings depends on the ability to secure a return on this investment for innovators and their investors. Much of this directly results from the strength of the solutions offered. Viable products must address the priorities of consumers (lower price and lower environmental impact, without compromise on quality or variety) and the needs of producers (climate resilience, pest immunity, and reliable yields). Equally important for securing a competitive edge is ensuring exclusivity around this advantage, to prevent “free riding” third parties undercutting the innovation.

Innovators will need to blend their technical, agricultural, and legal strategies to secure a lucrative market position, but the rewards for doing so will be substantial.

Good breeding

Breeding drought or pest resistance into coffee is an attractive prospect — as resistance is in effect always active, there is no need for the expensive and time-consuming application of applying protective agents at the right time. This also means that the advantages of resistant varieties can be felt by even small-scale producers who lack the access to capital required to invest in pesticides.

However, coffee breeding poses significant challenges. Traits can be introduced into plants by selecting natural mutations, but this is a lengthy and undirected process. Breeding is much more straightforward for traits already present in the gene pool, but unfortunately the Arabica gene pool in particular lacks this necessary diversity.

Wild coffee relatives could be a key tool in identifying and engineering improved coffee strains. There is significant early interest in harnessing the drought-resistance of Coffea liberica, Coffea racemosa, and Coffea stenophylla, and introducing these traits into high-value Arabica land races to produce new hybrid varieties that combine the hardiness of the wild relatives with the flavour profile and processability of elite Arabicas. Furthermore, many of these species grow in regions where common pests and disease are endemic, to which they have acquired immunity, and could also introduce these traits to the breeding pool.

Protecting innovation in plant breeding can be especially challenging. Whilst patent protection is often seen by investors as the gold standard of Intellectual Property (IP) rights, in many countries, plants as such produced through conventional breeding are exempt from patentability. Canny innovators can work around this carve-out to nevertheless create a valuable area of exclusivity. For example, methods and markers used to select for resistance traits, or cell-culture based breeding approaches, might be subject to valuable patent rights. These can be combined with plant variety rights (PVR), which prevent third parties from propagating specific protected varieties, to create a “double lock” for competitors attempting to engineer their own versions of the new strains.

Advances in gene editing

Although traditional breeding programmes can be lengthy, involving extensive crossing and selection between strains across multiple generations, this can be accelerated through precision genome editing technology. Unlike traditional transgenic techniques, where foreign DNA is inserted wholesale into the genome and are strictly regulated as genetically modified, gene editing uses precision tools to effectively ‘rewrite’ the plant’s native genetic code, changing the underlying genes and the traits they encode.

Advantageously, gene-edited crops have a favourable regulatory framework and are in certain circumstances treated the same as conventional plants in producer countries including Colombia and Brazil, as well as key consumer countries like the US, with the EU in the process of passing similar legislation in the near future. This is vital for consumer acceptance in markets where GMO remains a dirty word.

Long-term, gene editing may even allow coffee breeders to incorporate increasingly exotic traits into their beans. Characteristics such as caffeine content, levels of chlorogenic acids, aromatic profile, cherry ripening time, and bean size could all be manipulated to provide coffee that outperforms current varieties not only in yield but in quality and ease of processing, and which can demand higher prices as speciality products.

The future of crop protection

Given the need to increase yields by 2030, and the fact that even once new coffee varieties become available it will take three to four years for them to crop, there remains a need for new crop protection and enhancement products, at least in the interim.

Whilst chemical control agents are a core part of coffee farming, public opinion in the EU and the US is turning against their use. One alternative might be to harness the bacteria and fungi naturally associated with coffee plants. Much like in the human gut, a network of microbial species forms a symbiotic association with coffee plants, promoting growth and providing defence against pathogenic microbes. If these microorganisms could be isolated, they might provide effective live foliar sprays, or provide new antimicrobial compounds for development as agrichemicals.

This provides an opportunity for farmers as well as biotechnologists. The identification of beneficial microbes will require sampling from many farms around the world. Farmers who can negotiate royalties in exchange for these samples may find that mining microbial resources becomes a valuable income stream alongside selling raw beans.

Surveillance and enforcement

One of the biggest challenges for tech- and IP-heavy agribusiness is identifying infringement. Farms necessarily involve a loss of control over IP assets and, in many cases, it is simple to propagate plants or save seed to undercut the innovators. Finished products also undergo processing which make identifying traits challenging. This is even more acute in coffee, where the highly fragmented landscape of small producers across multiple countries, combined with the blending of products from multiple farms during the supply chain, means that, even when infringing products are identified, it is often impossible to determine which producer is at fault.

Technologies such as DNA fingerprinting might hold the answer. By identifying characteristic, detectable patterns in the genetic code of coffee beans from a particular strain, it is possible to identify whether beans from protected strains are present in a batch. Currently, this technology is limited by the ability to extract DNA from coffee in a high-throughput manner, but if this bottleneck could be overcome – for example, through cold-water extraction – then fingerprinting could not only be valuable for innovators seeking to identify infringers of their own IP but could provide a lucrative revenue stream if licensed out to third parties to aid in their sleuthing.

Indeed, fingerprinting might also be a valuable platform for tracing origin in the existing speciality coffee sector, with different markers than for the commodity market used to trace varieties and catch knock-offs.

Urgency of decision-making now

Production-side innovation in coffee has been sluggish and remains underinvested. However, as with vineyards in the late 20th century, embracing technology has the potential to improve yields, profits, and conditions for producers whilst maintaining quality.

Coffee’s status as the world’s beverage of choice seems, for now, unassailable, as its popularity only continues to grow. A lot of this success is built on the back of low prices and near-ubiquitous availability. This will be necessary for the world’s favourite drink to service ever-increasing demand in the face of challenges from climate shocks, land competition, or emergent disease and pests. Despite the early stage of development, decisions made now about how to protect, promote, position, and exploit this work will have long-lasting consequences on the landscape of coffee production for decades to come.

• Andrew Tindall is a patent attorney at Potter Clarkson, a London-based a firm that specialises in advising clients on food technologies.

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“We don’t talk about any other agricultural products in this framework of superior and inferior. We don’t say red wine is inferior, white wine is superior,” said Sahra Nguyen, founder and CEO of Nguyen Coffee Supply, advocates of Robusta since its founding. “A really easy way to completely deconstruct this false framework of the Arabica-Robusta dichotomy is to apply all the ways that we evaluate and appreciate the differentiated qualities of the wine industry to the framework of coffee. We’d be in a completely different space.”

Robusta is the common name for the species Coffea canephora, and, in the history of coffee, Arabica predates Robusta, with the latter not being introduced to the coffee market until 1900, according to the Special Coffee Association’s (SCA) chief research officer, Peter Giuliano. “Robusta was positioned as a way to produce coffee cheaply in places where Arabica couldn’t thrive – and became associated in the coffee market with cheapness,” explained Giuliano.

In short, Robusta is easier than Arabica to grow, as, informed Spencer Turer, vice president of Coffee Enterprises, it requires lower altitudes (0-600m compared to Arabica’s 600-1,200m), and, in part due to its higher caffeine content (2.2-2.7 percent to Arabica’s 1.2-1.5 percent), it is more resistant to pests and diseases; it grows ‘robustly.’ What’s more, when it comes to harvesting, the Robusta coffee cherries ripen all at the same time, compared with Arabica which ripen at different times on different branches. This means that Robusta requires less labour to harvest as it can be done all at once, rather than the often-repeated visits required for Arabica. This, combined with its generally higher yields, has positioned the Robusta species as an efficient and cheap to produce coffee crop.

“Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, some companies began blending large amounts of cheaply produced, low quality Robusta to make their coffees cheaper. In some ways, the specialty coffee revolution was a reaction to this ‘race to the bottom’, and the canephora species was easy to blame,” added Giuliano.

An overdue uplift

When the specialty coffee industry evolved, therefore, in the late 1980s and 1990s, since Robusta had only been produced cheaply to meet volume and nothing else, the quality of it was not comparable to that of Arabica and it has been considered antithetical to specialty ever since. As a result, as Gloria Pedroza, head of quality, NKG Quality Services Switzerland, explained, “The industry is more familiar with this species [Arabica], it has invested in research and has experimented with processing methods, meaning that Arabica is a few decades ahead in terms of development and marketing compared to other species.”

Image: ICO Production Statistics

Consequently, there has been a chronic lack of investment and research into optimising Robusta production. There were no systems or infrastructure in place to allow producers to differentiate their Robusta, and there was no incentive for them to try. Nguyen noted, “I know a lot of very passionate Robusta producers; they want to improve their crop, they want to improve their land, they want to improve their wages. But the market is so fixated on this stigma, that it won’t pay a higher rate because they don’t believe Robusta can be quality.” She noted that “there’s been an entire community in the coffee world that that has been told you don’t deserve investment. You don’t deserve care. You don’t deserve to improve or advance your livelihoods, and that’s what we are ultimately trying to lift when we talk about Robusta.”

There are markets, meanwhile, Hanna Neuschwander, communications & strategy director at World Coffee Research (WCR) argued, where Robusta has always been highly accepted by consumers, such as in Italy where it has been used in espresso blends for decades, and in certain African markets it is prized for its flavour over Arabica. Further, with Robusta now making up 40 percent of global coffee production, a rise from 25 percent since the early 1990s, it is not an unfamiliar flavour profile for consumers, with it pervading across the coffee industry and its numerous brands and products for many decades.

Yet it wasn’t until 2010 that the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) launched its Robusta Q programme, to complement its existing Arabica Q programme, followed by the debut of the CQI Fine Robusta Standards and Protocols in 2015. This gave the coffee industry the framework it needed to differentiate Robusta in terms of quality and offer it something to build on and parameters to innovate within.

Nguyen Coffee Supply, founded by Sahra Nguyen in 2018, championed Robusta from the offset, and has been “extremely loud and proud” about it ever since. Its 100 percent Robusta products have been clearly labelled as such from the start, vehemently dismissing the industry norm to hide a coffee product’s Robusta content. Nguyen explained that, despite her company being both an importer and a roaster, it largely operates in the consumer space; “In the B2B space, the stigma [against Robusta] was just too strong, where I couldn’t really break through.” Whereas in the consumer market, the stigma against Robusta is minimal to non-existent.

Nguyen continued, “Consumers are generally unaware of this negative perception, and they really don’t care. […] They just want what they want right?” Nguyen Coffee Supply has invested a lot of its resources in the marketing, education, and storytelling side of its brand, to “shift consumer perceptions that would then create a ripple effect into the industry,” she said, and they have since seen the movement grow, with more and more brands beginning to champion Robusta.

Sahra Nguyen, Nguyen Coffee Supply founder, holding limited edition anaerobic Robusta beans. Image: Nguyen Coffee Supply

Nguyen Coffee Supply has built on this ethos with its Robusta Pledge, which encourages other producers, importers, roasters, cafés, businesses, and coffee enthusiasts to sign a commitment to advance opportunities for Robusta farming communities and for a transparent and fair Robusta market.

Sustaining the future of coffee

While Nguyen Coffee Supply recognises the importance of the Robusta bean and the immense value it holds for the coffee industry, gradually this mentality is spreading. In March 2023, WCR launched its Robusta Variety Catalogue, alongside other Robusta resources such as a Grafting Manual and Nursery Videos. It is becoming increasingly evident that the future of coffee production as we know it is at considerable risk, largely in part due to climate change and the impact this is having on the temperatures and conditions in coffee growing regions. WCR operates a breeding programme for coffee varieties to not just optimise taste, but to encourage climate resistance and better adaptability or suitability to particular conditions. This year, WCR is planning to launch a global Robusta specific breeding network, which will produce hundreds of new Robusta crosses. It is thought that Robusta will be a crucial tool in safeguarding coffee production for future generations.

As already discussed, Robusta has proven to be more pest and disease resistant to Arabica, this, as Pedroza explained, combined with the higher planting density and leafier shrubs creating shade under the plants, helping the soil to maintain moisture, discourages the growth of weeds around the plant which means that less herbicides and pesticides are necessary. These more organic practices encourage long term soil health, further contributing to yield, and protecting the local and wider ecosystem of the area.

With 50 percent of land for Arabica production projected to be no longer suitable by 2050, as forecast by WCR, among others, preparations must be made. “It is difficult to see how the industry can avoid using a greater proportion of Robusta beans in the future given the realities of climate change,” noted Matthew Barry, insight manager of food & beverages at Euromonitor International. Arabica is already struggling to keep up with global demand. Neuschwander emphasised that “Robusta has already saved the coffee sector. If Robusta had not arisen over the last few decades to its current position (40 percent of total production), many – perhaps millions – of coffee farmers would be out of work and entire segments of the coffee market would not exist. Without Robusta, we would not have been able to keep pace with growing global demand over the last three decades.”

However, Robusta is not immune to the climate emergency; WCR predicts that with consumption and climate trends as they are, the world could be facing a Robusta shortage of up to 35 million bags by 2040. As the years progress, Neuschwander concluded, “We need every tool we can get to respond to climate change – farmers will have to ‘run faster just to stand still’.”

Opportunities for innovation

Robusta has quite quickly and assuredly established itself on the specialty coffee scene, with Nguyen affirming that roasters are now frequently asking the company for fine Robusta, or single origin Robusta. Giuliano concurred that the request for Robusta has been the SCA’s most asked question of 2023, and Turer that Robusta is offering roasters a unique selling proposition for them to differentiate themselves.

Image: Nguyen Coffee Supply

“Increasing interest in Robusta signifies a coffee market that is creative, innovative, and open to new ideas. The success of Robusta is part of an increasingly diverse coffee market which is more likely to thrive in the long term,” enthused Giuliano.

And we are only just starting to scratch the surface of Robusta processing methods, believes Nguyen, with Nguyen Coffee Supply recently having released an anaerobic Robusta. Pedroza added that if Robusta is treated [during processing] the same way as Arabica, excellent results are possible. She explained that for decades the washed processing method was considered the best for high quality coffee, yet now, “New processing techniques like extended fermentation periods, anaerobic fermentation, just to mention some, have also had a great impact on the cup, proving that Robusta has a huge quality potential and the industry is in the process of discovering it.”

The opportunities the evolution of Robusta presents for the industry for both innovation and sustainability justify its dizzying rise to the realm of specialty coffee. “Coffee is economically important – and beloved – around the world, yet it faces a [USD] $452 million/year investment gap. Filling that innovation gap is how we ensure a future with quality coffee from climate resilient trees, whether that coffee is Arabica, Robusta, or any other species,” explained Dr Jennifer “Vern” Long, CEO, WCR.

Nguyen also noted that, as a result, she thinks we are headed towards more global collaboration as a coffee industry, “for uplifting Robusta, and also just expanding the coffee experience to make it better for everyone.”

So, although, as Neuschwander articulated, “Robusta is not a silver bullet for climate change or sustainability efforts in coffee,” it is an exciting time for the coffee industry, as it begins what many believe to be a long overdue embrace of “the underdog bean.”

• Kathryn Brand is an associate editor on T&CTJ, while still writing for several of Bell’s other magazines. She joined Bell Publishing at the beginning of 2022 after graduating from the University of East Anglia with a degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. She may be reached at: kathryn@bellpublishing.com.

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While this increasingly extreme weather may have been a wakeup call for some, World Coffee Research (WCR) has long anticipated these threats and is on a mission to mitigate the effects these changes will have, and is having, on our coffee industry, by breeding and growing more climate resistant coffee species. Yesterday, WCR shared an article on its LinkedIn page, published by the Financial Times, titled ‘Have we reached peak coffee?’

Coffee consumption is on the rise, the article detailed, with a rapidly growing market among ‘new consumers’ in China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and sub-Saharan Africa. Yet, this demand is outpacing supply, with warming temperatures threatening up to half of current coffee farmland, and fluctuating harvests forcing farmers to abandon the industry for a more stable income.

Vanusia Nogueira, executive director of the International Coffee Organization (ICO) noted in the piece that coffee may be forced to become a luxury commodity or endure a significant hit to its quality if the deficit continues.

Meanwhile, Jennifer ‘Vern’ Long, chief executive of WCR explained how the challenge comes from coffee being a plant that loves ‘perfect’ or ‘Goldilocks’ weather with just the right temperatures and rainfall, which are the fragile conditions being threatened by climate change. Areas that are currently ideal for coffee growing, known as the coffee belt, are decreasing in their suitability, with areas previously unsuited, to the north or south of this belt, beginning to be more suitable for growing coffee. However, any shift in location would affect the livelihoods of innumerable communities across the coffee belt that are reliant on coffee growing for their economy.

Since so much of the retail value of coffee is held in the higher-income countries which import the coffee, the coffee-farming communities do not have the resources or resilience to hold fast against these climate-induced challenges. The future of coffee hangs in the balance unless there is a redistribution of the risk and profit in the industry as a whole so that coffee farming remains a desirable and reliable practice for those communities, emphasised Daniele Giovannucci, founder of the Committeee on Sustainability Assessment, in the article.

Alongside this rethink of coffee pricing, ought to be a revaluation of the coffee plants themselves. While there are 130 species of coffee discovered in the wild, only arabica and robusta are used for the world’s coffee consumption, which significantly increases the vulnerability of the plant.

At World of Coffee Athens in June, Emilia Umaña, WCR nursery development manager, explained in her presentation that World Coffee Research is a collective investment in the future of coffee by the coffee industry. The work WCR does is to breed varieties that wouldn’t normally meet naturally, in order to cultivate certain advantageous characteristics, notably resistance to drought and high temperatures, to safeguard the future of the coffee industry. WCR has over 170 members in 30 countries and relies on these multinational links in its research. Numerous factors such as altitude, soil type, etc., as well as climate, necessarily impact the characteristics of coffee plants grown there, so the same variant may differ in each location. Which is why thorough testing internationally is essential.

Drastic changes to the way we grow, trade, and consume coffee might well be on the horizon, which is why change is rapidly needed to meet the ever-growing demand from the threatened supply. Work that the WCR is doing provides options to farmers, but they must be supported and incentivised by the corporations dominating the rest of the supply chain for coffee farming to continue being a worthwhile and viable livelihood.

• Kathryn Brand, associate editor, Tea & Coffee Trade Journal.
  Keep in touch via email: kathryn@bellpublishing.com
  Twitter: @TCTradeJournal or LinkedIn: Tea & Coffee Trade Journal

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So as the coffee industry looks for solutions to meet the growing challenges of the climate crisis, World Coffee Research (WCR) has taken an important step by publishing its first Robusta Variety Catalog to help Robusta farmers make informed decisions about varieties. 

The catalogue, which is available in English and Spanish, profiles 47 Robusta varieties – from origins such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Uganda, Mexico, and Vietnam – using 20+ variables, like yield potential, stature, bean size, nutrition requirements, lineage, susceptibility to pests/diseases, among others. 

With Robusta’s growing prevalence in the global market, WCR hopes the catalogue will lower the risk associated with coffee farming by providing direct information to enable farmers and other planting decision-makers to make an informed choice about what varieties will grow best in particular environments. “The catalogue is a critical new resource to fill the information gap that exists in our industry regarding Robusta coffee,” said Hanna Neuschwander, WCR’s strategy and communications director. 

With the life of a coffee tree being 20 to 30 years, the decision farmers make about which variety to plant has long-term consequences. If a farmer makes an uninformed decision on variety, the cumulative loss can be huge. Comparatively, if a farmer makes the right decision, the cumulative gain can be significant. For instance, WCR explains that a Robusta farmer in Uganda who successfully cultivates a healthy Coffee Wilt Disease resistant (CWD-r) plant can earn 250% more than a farmer who plants a susceptible, unhealthy plant. (Uganda has an ambitious plan to increase its coffee exports, including Robusta within five years. Uganda’s current coffee exports are around USD $627 million annually, with the goal in five years being $1.5 billion — a 28% increase.) 

WCR noted that most Robusta farmers in particular do not have access to transparent information about available varieties and how they differ. Robusta farmers typically sell into lower-value markets where variety differentiation is nonexistent. In addition, Robusta requires more than one variety and simultaneous flowering for successful pollination. Because of this, farmers must cultivate a mix of complementary clones to enhance fruit production and quality. These mixtures, which typically comprise officially-released commercial varieties, are often distributed to farmers with minimal transparency about what clones are included in the mix and their unique properties. The lack of up-to-date variety information puts farmers at risk and perpetuates low yields around the globe. 

“WCR [works] to empower farmers by making tools available to choose the right varieties for their farms and their markets — varieties that deliver high yield and better-tasting coffee in the long term,” said WCR’s CEO Dr Jennifer ‘Vern’ Long in a statement. “And now that Robusta comprises 40 percent of the coffee produced and marketed globally, we saw the need to support farmers by creating this tool.” 

The Robusta catalogue was generated through collaborative sourcing of data about varieties from breeders and other experts. The varieties in the Robusta catalogue were selected for inclusion because of their economic, historical, cultural, or genetic importance. Even so, significant gaps in data for many Robusta varieties remain. The genetic diversity of Robusta coffee is also much larger than that of Arabica, and it is only just beginning to be explored by breeders and the industry at large. The catalogue does not aim to represent an exhaustive list of all coffee varieties in existence. 

Alongside the detailed variety profiles, users can find a consolidated and peer-reviewed history of Robusta as a species, which tracks it from its origins in central and western sub-Saharan Africa through its dispersal across Asia and Latin America to its cultivation today. In addition, the history provides a brief overview of the genetic diversity and conservation of Robusta to provide readers the opportunity to better understand how well-differentiated the various populations of this species are. Users are also able to filter different variables, such as yield potential, country of release, etc.  

The Robusta resource serves as an expansion of WCR’s Arabica Variety Catalog, which was launched in 2016 and profiles Arabica varieties from around the world. 

The Robusta and Arabica catalogues can be accessed here. 

• Vanessa L Facenda, editor, Tea & Coffee Trade Journal.
  Keep in touch via email: vanessa@bellpublishing.com Twitter: @TCTradeJournal or LinkedIn: Tea & Coffee Trade Journal

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Robusta farmers have a new open-access resource at their fingertips—World Coffee Research’s (WCR) Robusta Variety Catalog. The catalogue, which is available in English and Spanish, profiles 47 robusta varieties—from origins such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Uganda, Mexico, and Vietnam—using 20+ variables, like yield potential, stature, bean size, nutrition requirements, lineage, susceptibility to pests/diseases, and many more. The catalogue is hosted alongside WCR’s existing Arabica Varieties Catalog on the interactive website varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org.

With robusta’s growing prevalence in the global market, WCR hopes the catalogue will lower the risk associated with coffee farming by providing direct information to enable farmers and other planting decision-makers to make an informed choice about what varieties will grow best in particular environments.

Since the life of a coffee tree is 20-30 years, the decision farmers make about which variety to plant has long-term consequences. If a farmer makes an uninformed decision on variety, the cumulative loss can be huge. Comparatively, if a farmer makes the right decision, the cumulative gain can be significant. For example, a robusta farmer in Uganda who successfully cultivates a healthy Coffee Wilt Disease resistant (CWD-r) plant can earn 250% more than a farmer who plants a susceptible, unhealthy plant.

Most robusta farmers in particular do not have access to transparent information about available varieties and how they differ. Robusta farmers typically sell into lower-value markets where variety differentiation is nonexistent. In addition, robusta requires more than one variety and simultaneous flowering for successful pollination. Because of this, farmers must cultivate a mixt of complementary clones to enhance fruit production and quality. These mixtures, which typically comprise officially-released commercial varieties, are often distributed to farmers with minimal transparency about what clones are included in the mix and their unique properties. The lack of up-to-date variety information puts farmers at risk and perpetuates low yields around the globe.

This resource serves as an expansion of WCR’s popular Arabica Variety Catalog, which was launched in 2016 and profiles arabica varieties from around the world. At the time of its release, the arabica catalogue was a first-of-its-kind resource and the only global compendium of information about available coffee varieties for farmers, buyers, and roasters. The resource has been viewed over one million times since its launch and, as a living document, continues to support WCR’s goal to improve the availability and accessibility of improved planting material for farmers around the world.

Until recently, arabica held reign over most of the coffee market due to preferences for its beverage quality, but various factors, including the increasing demand and climate pressure for farmers, have led to expansions in the production of robusta.

“Since our founding over ten years ago, WCR has worked to empower farmers by making tools available to choose the right varieties for their farms and their markets—varieties that deliver high yield and better-tasting coffee in the long term,” said WCR’s chief executive officer Dr Jennifer “Vern” Long. “And, now that robusta comprises 40% of the coffee produced and marketed globally, we saw the need to support farmers by creating this tool.”

The robusta catalogue was generated through collaborative sourcing of data about varieties from breeders and other experts, including the Central Coffee Research Institute (CCRI), the Indonesian Coffee and Cocoa Research Institute (ICCRI), the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA), the National Coffee Research Institute of Uganda (NaCORI-Uganda), the Western Highlands Agroforestry Science Institute (WASI), and Nestlé’s Research Center. The varieties in the robusta catalogue were selected for inclusion because of their economic, historical, cultural, or genetic importance. Even so, significant gaps in data for many Robusta varieties remain. The genetic diversity of robusta coffee is also much larger than that of arabica, and it is only just beginning to be explored by breeders and the industry at large. The catalogue, therefore, does not aim to represent an exhaustive list of all coffee varieties in existence.

Alongside the detailed variety profiles, users can find a consolidated and peer-reviewed history of robusta as a species, which tracks it from its origins in central and western sub-Saharan Africa through its dispersal across Asia and Latin America to its cultivation today. In addition, the history provides a brief overview of the genetic diversity and conservation of robusta to provide readers the opportunity to better understand how well-differentiated the various populations of this species are.

The interactive catalogue website features the ability to filter on different variables, such as yield potential, country of release, and more. It also includes the ability to generate a unique, customisable PDF with the varieties of the user’s choice, and a new visualisation of the genetic groups of the included varieties. Both the arabica and robusta catalogues are shared via Creative Commons licenses that make them available for free distribution worldwide.

The robusta and arabica catalogues can be accessed free of cost at varieties.worldcoffeeresearch.org.

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To fuel its sustainability goals, Dunkin’ has partnered with like-minded organisations. Together they’re working to support the regions where Dunkin’s coffee grows and make a difference in the lives and livelihoods of coffee farmers and producers.

The Dunkin’ Drive-To Sustainability Program is comprised of three pillars: verification, partnerships, and improvement. As part of the first pillar, we are partnering with Enveritas, a 501(c)(3) non-profit founded to overcome systemic barriers that prevent the application of proven solutions for ending poverty among smallholder coffee growers.

By leveraging its Coffee Policy and third-party verification with Enveritas, Dunkin’ aims to improve standards with US roasters and international licensees, audit its US coffee supply chain to ensure policy compliance, and track key performance indicators toward continuous improvement efforts.

Some of Dunkin’s efforts under its pillars of Partnerships and Improvement include:
• Supported the planting of 450,000 trees in coffee growing regions of Honduras and Guatemala in 2021 with a donation to One Tree Planted, a 501(c)(3) non-profit dedicated to helping the environment by planting trees in countries around the world.
• Trained farmers and farmworkers in Honduras through its Farmworker Training Project alongside the Louis Dreyfus Company. This project enhanced Dunkin’s suppliers’ abilities to make improvements on sustainability issues.
• Boosting coffee sustainability through agricultural science as a leading sponsor of the nonprofit World Coffee Research (WCR). A percentage of sales from every pound of Original Blend coffee beans sold to Dunkin’ franchisees for use in Dunkin’ restaurants go to WCR.
• Since 2018, Dunkin’ has been a part of The Sustainable Coffee Challenge, a collaborative effort led by Conservation International to make coffee the world’s first sustainable agricultural product.
• To empower women in coffee, Dunkin’ has supported providing coffee suppliers in Guatemala and Colombia with access to Equal Origins’ Virtual Learning Journey.
• Over the next three years, alongside global agri-business company Olam Food Ingredients (OFI), Dunkin’ will help 350 coffee-farming families in Santa Barbara and Comayagua, Honduras become more economically sustainable and better environmental stewards through trainings and improved crop yields.

To learn more, visit impact.inspirebrands.com.

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Tim Schilling, founder of World Coffee Research and president of WCR Europe, has received the 2020 Sustainability Award from the Specialty Coffee Association. The winners were honoured at the virtual Re:co Symposium on Thursday 16 July.

The Sustainability Champion award recognises the career of an individual in pursuit of a sustainable specialty coffee sector. The 2020 Sustainability Awards are sponsored by Farmer Brothers, a longtime WCR member company.

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