…..more than 26,000 farmers working with Nestlé to
improve the quality of coffee
Nestlé, the world's leading
Nutrition, Health and Wellness Company, has reaffirmed its commitment to
continue offering technical support to coffee farmers, to help them increase
their yields and also improve the quality of the product.
This was said by the company’s global CEO, Paul Bulcke,
when he visited last week, the inaugural Nestlé NESCAFÉ® PLAN project in
Karatina, which targets nine Farmer’s Cooperative Societies (FCS), with 27 wet
mills and over 26,000 farming households in different coffee growing zones.
“The demand for coffee in the world market has shown a
steady increase in the recent past and Nestlé, with its world famous coffee
brands like Nescafé and Nespresso, is one of the buyers of world class coffee.
Kenya is known globally as a source of high quality coffee, most of which is
from small scale farmers. We want to work closely with key partners, including
farmers in Kenya, to provide ready market for their raw materials.” said
Bulcke, who was visiting Kenya for the second time.
In 2010, Nestlé announced that it would double the amount
of coffee bought directly from farmers to 180,000 tons over the next five
years. Currently, the company sources its coffee directly from its markets in
South East Asia such as Thailand, China, Indonesia and the Philippines. It is
also sources coffee from farmers directly in Brazil, Colombia, Côte d’Ivoire
and Mexico. In Africa, Nestlé sources coffee from Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania,
Rwanda and Burundi.
“Nestlé has always provided great tasting products to its
consumers throughout the world which means that our raw materials have to be of
top quality and we do not compromise on that. This also puts a huge
responsibility on us to help the farmers produce the quality of coffee that we
can use in our products,” said Bulcke.
NESCAFÉ® PLAN, was launched in Kenya in March 2012, in
partnership with Coffee Management Services (CMS), with an initial investment
of Ksh. 35 million, to offer capacity building through training and technical
support, to improve productivity, quality (more specialty Grade coffees), and
ensure higher incomes for coffee farmers hence improving the living standards
of the farmers community.
Globally, Nestlé will be investing about 29 Billion Kshs
in The NESCAFÉ® PLAN over the next ten years (2011 – 2020) which builds on the
Kshs 17 Billion investment in coffee projects over the last ten years.
End
About Nestlé EAR
Nestlé Equatorial African Region is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Nestlé S.A. in Vevey, Switzerland — the world’s largest
Nutrition, Health and Wellness Company with sales of CHF 83.6 billion. Nestlé
EAR was set up in April 2008 and oversees the Nestlé operations in 21
countries: Kenya, Angola, Burundi, Comoros, DRC, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Malawi, RC, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia,
South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
good news for coffee farmers.....hope they can take advantage of this initiative
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