It’s about stewardship of people, planet, and our product. For over a decade, it has been a crucial element in how we conduct our business.
When prices on the commodities market fell far below the cost of production in the mid-90s, we started to think differently about the work we needed to do to support and strengthen our supply chain. We began to pay premiums for our green coffees and looked for ways to bolster the communities upon which we all depend for our coffees.
We are committed to preserving the communities and ecosystems that make coffee flourish. At origin, all of our work prioritizes and supports environmental conservation, involves our partners to ensure collaboration, and can be categorized into three interdependent areas, our "3-E's":
RGC's long-term suppliers are the strategic partners with whom we orchestrate relationship projects, facilitating roaster participation in efforts to collaborate directly with coffee-growing communities.
These efforts strive to strengthen our supply and roaster partnerships through:
Working with nature guides all of our efforts because we all depend on these precious resources globally.
Knowledge and technologies are developed to:
Flor de mi Tierra was established in 2005 to work on re-building coffee communities displaced and hard hit by guerilla violence. The program focuses on basic needs such as health, sanitation and education & most-recently young entrepeneurs in coffee.
Caldas, Colombia
Launched in 2016, the Aguadas Farmworkers Pilot is a coffee industry coordinated project to find solutions and work on a benchmark to increase the quality of farmworker conditions, management, labor formalization and recruitment.
La Plata, Huila, Colombia
This association of over 400 women coffee farmers came together to solve issues including lack of capital to use on their farms and to create an equitable working relationship with their husbands. Today, they are committed to producing high-quality coffee.
Popayan, Cauca, Colombia
Popayan, Cauca, Colombia
An association of 392 organic coffee farmers who promote and develop technologies that increase the production and yields of excellent organic coffees. The projects helps to attract conventional farms to convert to organic.
Valle del Cauca, Colombia
The focus with Granja La Esperanza is to promote specialty and microlot coffees from Colombia. La Esperanza has created a truly unique environment among their 3 model farms which serves as a leading worldwide example of microlot coffees.
