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MOYEE IMPACT REPORT 2024

Dear Moyeesta, every 11 years or so, the sun's magnetic field completely flips. North and south poles switch places.

Moyee is in its 11th year, and we feel like we are in the midst of such a dramatic turn.

DISCOVER OUR IMPACT

FACTORIES

FARMERS

FORESTS

FACTORIES

OUR ECONOMIC IMPACT
VALUABLE 

JOBS AND A PROUD FUTURE

FOR THE YOUTH WITHOUT

THE NEED FOR 

DEVELOPMENT AID.​

LET'S FIX THE FUTURE!

(SNEAK PEEK 1 OF 3)


Yessss its ready, our latest impact report.

Before we officially launch it we will share 3 miniblogs about our three main impact pillars; Factories – Farmers – Forests or economic, social and environmental impact.

It’s called ‘Let’s Fix the Future!’ because a lot needs to be fixed. COVID-19 raised all sorts of havoc, but maybe most of all it unveiled society’s deep social riffs and the ever-rising inequality that is leading to ever-greater poverty, deforestation and climate change. One thing is clear: now more than ever we need better business models designed to solve these problems rather than continue to add to them.

With FairChain and Moyee, we’re building our company around Economic, Social and Environmental impact. How this is impacting us and, well, you, is in the report. We hope we can inspire you to make a difference, and please feel free to give us your feedback.

Thanks for supporting us over the years and….

Let’s Fix the Future together.

Cheers!

Guido & Team Moyee

​

LET'S TALK NUMBERS

Currently, only 10% of the value of your average cup of coffee remains in the country of origin, which, when you think about it, is absurd!


By investing in value-adding activities like roasting and packaging at origin, we not only help coffee-growing countries evolve from primary (agro) to secondary (industrial) economies and create the valuable jobs that go with this evolution, but we also help 5 times more income stay in local hands island helping growing countries to prosper through trade not aid. We believe coffee-growing countries should claim their invaluable positions in the coffee supply chain. They have every right to demand to be equal partners. It’s their coffee, after all.


To measure the economic impact of FairChain we’ve created a fairly simple framework with four main impact indicators:

61

JOBS SUPPORTED​

By the end of 2020 we were supporting 61 value-adding jobs across our roasteries in Ethiopia and Kenya. That’s pretty impressive considering we began with 18 jobs in 2015. This number represents the jobs created by opening local roasteries and sustaining those jobs over the years.

62,000kg

BEANS EXPORTED​

Last year we roasted a whopping 77,003 kg in Ethiopia and Kenya – that’s up from just 2,180 kg in Ethiopia in 2015. This number represents the number of kilo’s exported from Ethiopia and Kenya to elsewhere.

€575,000

LEFT AT ORIGIN

By roasting locally, we leave behind more than 5 times as much value in country of origin compared to industry average. In practical terms this meant in 2020 that €575,000 of profits and income stayed in Ethiopia and Kenyan hands as against just €19,000 in 2015.

12,300,000

CUPS DRANK

If we measure FairChain awareness by cups, then in 2020 that awareness rings in at 13.6 million cups. This is the number of cups of FairChain coffee drank by our friends and fans. This is a radical increase from 3.7 million cups in 2015. We like to think we sparked a bona fide FairChain movement. Our ambition is to inspire consumers to make conscious decisions that have real impact.

40,52 BIRR

LIMU, ETHIOPIA

With the Mizan Farm we’ve created a laboratory for the future of coffee that is fully under our control. In Limmu, however, we are working with hundreds of farmers and more than a thousand suppliers to introduce more sustainable farming methods that lead directly to more profitable farmers.

38,65 BIRR

MIZAN, ETHIOPIA

Mizan Farm in southwest Ethiopia spans 247 hectares. It is here we we are experimenting with some of the most ambitious agroforestry projects on the planet.

78,12 KSH

KERICHO, KENYA

In the vibrant region of Kericho, Kenya, we are partnering closely with 151 smallholder farmers on the western shores of Lake Victoria.

14,335 USH

MT ELGON, UGANDA

In 2020 we brought our FairChain revolution to Uganda by partnering with the Mt. Elgon Agroforestry Communitites Cooperative Enterprise (MEACCE), an established coop that comprises nearly 3,282 smallholder farmers focused on producing organic coffee.

IMPACT EXPLAINED

IMPORTANCE OF ROASTING LOCALLY

A whopping 90% of the total value of every cup of coffee is exported away In other words, only 10% stays in the country of origin. Out of this 10%, just 2% is considered ‘value-adding’. FairChain’s goal is to right this shameful imbalance and create an equal value split: 50% for them, 50% for us.


IMPORTANCE OF (E)QUALITY

In recent years heavily bearded and tattooed micro-roasters have become the posterboys of the specialty coffee scene. Love them or hate them, these micro-roasters should get some credit for kickstarting the trend to decommoditize coffee. Many call this the Third Wave of coffee. But our goal at Moyee is to usher in the Fourth Wave of coffee, which focuses not only on great quality but also on radical impact at origin. To us, great quality and great impact go hand in hand, or should.

That’s our goal. But for radical impact you need lots and lots of people to join your movement. Our aim is to make quality coffee less elitist and more mainstream. For us the Fourth Wave is a shift from quality to equality.

50% AWESOME COFFEE, 50% EXPERIMENT BUT 100% THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS.

FairChain is both a voice and a fist against a system where development aid subsidizes global corporations that refuse to share their wealth.

But why should the burden of solving poverty, deforestation and climate change fall exclusively on governments and NGOs when Big Coffee corporations are pocketing enormous profits?

Why should the rich get richer and the poor poorer? When coffee is the world’s most consumed beverage and its second most valuable commodity, why can’t coffee farming be profitable in its own right and coffee-growing countries enjoy trade instead of aid? And why can’t we consumers not sip guilt-free premium coffee at reasonable prices? The answer to all these questions is: we can.

Welcome to the world of Moyee and our FairChain approach to doing business..

It’s all fine and well to say we are striving for economic equality, but what does that actually mean? Good question! Our main driver is to rebalance the global coffee chain. At the heart of FairChain is a 50/50 approach that aims to create an equal value split between countries that produce coffee and countries that consume it.

ACHIEVEMENTS

#1 DOUBLE-DIGIT GROWTH

Our dynamic duo Killian and Shane are totally rocking it in Ireland. At the same time, we’ve also sent a few expedition vessels to the United Kingdom, Germany and France to touch base with a rising tide of FairChain fans. We sometimes refer to Moyee drinkers as Happy Activists, by which we mean friendly, open-minded individuals who, like us, see opportunity in healing the planet, (re)generative entrepreneurship and equality-driven business models. Oh, and they enjoy sipping a freakin’ great coffee that doesn’t destroy the planet.


These people are the reason we realized double-digit growth in 2019, which is pretty awesome. However, we didn’t have a whole lot of time to enjoy this growth. In the wake of Covid-19 pandemic, in the first half of 2020 we lost half our B2B revenues. At the same time, we gained extraordinary momentum on our B2C online sales – momentum we plan to ride on through to the end of this year and beyond. If the covid-19 virus has proven anything, it’s that many things in this world need fixing and that the FairChain philosophy goes a long way to fixing it. We expect to play an important role in the post-pandemic rebuild.

#2 KICKSTART KENYA

Moyee’s FairChain revolution is a global revolution. Our aim is to offer our fanbase stellar locally-roasted coffee from different places on the planet. Our customers want fair coffee with great flavor profiles. Our strategy is to respond to their demands. When we find a new coffee we think our fanbase will like, we first roast it in small batches at our Amsterdam HQ.


The roastery we have here is our playground where we test new flavors and, if needed, compensate for supply chain hiccups (which can be an issue when working in Africa). If our fans like the coffee and volumes grow, then we move production to the country of origin. This is precisely what is happening with our Kenyan Triple right now. After a successful introduction in small-batch form, we have moved the roasting and packaging of this lovely blend to Kenya.

#3 OPENING A 15,000 M2 ROASTING FACILITY

Every successful Silicon Valley start-up has its own ‘garage story’. Well, at Moyee, we have what we call our ‘backyard story’. We first began roasting in a small house in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, but in 2015 volumes were big enough to force a move from the “backyard” to a proper 2,000 m2 factory, complete with quality control and packing and cupping facilities.


Today, Moyee Roasting Ethiopia, the entity we founded, has become a 15,000 m2 facility! Last year we handed over a large part of our ownership to free up additional resources for our next big growth hike and impact interventions.

#4 GOVERNMENTAL RECOGNITION OF FAIRCHAIN

When it comes to large coffee tenders, the focus is primarily on price per cup. Of course, you can earn ‘extra points’ for sustainability, which is why most brands are eager to ‘buy’ Fairtrade, Utz or Rainforest Alliance certifications. At Moyee, we bring a ‘beyond certification’ attitude to the tender game. Since introducing blockchain tracing technology, we have positioned ourselves at the heart of the sustainability discourse.


Tenders are finally recognizing our blockchain as a non-certified sustainability label. This is great news not only for us, but for all the other purpose driven coffee brands out there who either don’t have the money or simply don’t believe in the idea of buying certification. So big thumbs up for policymakers!

#5 CROWDFUNDING

Moyee is a 100% shared value company. This means that we do everything possible to retain the value within our own impact ecosystem. When we need funding, for example, we turn first to our community and not to banks. Our first crowdfunding campaign in 2016 maxed out after just 48 hours! Our second crowdfunding campaign in 2019 maxed out in 24 hours! For those unfamiliar with crowdfunding, that’s fast.


The money we raised from our community allowed us to add another 400 farmers to our FairChain network. Even with the corona pandemic hitting our industry full swing, we have successfully paid off the first wave of crowdfunders and are currently paying off the second wave in quarterly payments. Total trust and rock-solid commitment between us and our community. That is the future of business!

OUR ECONOMIC TO DO LIST​

1. Moyee aims to roast 300,000 kilograms a year. We aim to scale up from low-volume premium exporters (from Ethiopia and Kenya) to high-volume premium exporters. Our plan is to boost our roasting activities in Kenya and Colombia and raise the percentage of truly locally-roasted FairChain coffee to 90% (We will continue to roast small batches via our Amsterdam HQ in case of supply chain hiccups or for product development). 

2. Moyee will source all of its coffee directly from smallholders, offering the global coffee industry a blueprint on how to introduce profitable farming to the 5,5 million farmers that live below the poverty line. 

3. We aim to change the profile of our Impact Ecosystem so that it is less reliant of a single roastery in Ethiopia and can spread the risk of logistical hiccups across multiple roasteries.

4. Combine our best practices in Holland, Ireland and Germany for a pan-European roll-out and make inroads into America.

Moyee aims to champion the Fourth Wave of coffee and to lead with our regenerative and redistributive fairchain business model as the right approach for the 21st century to the profit obsessed model still being peddled by Big Coffee conglomerates.

​

Our healing, regenerative and redistributive business model will inspire many brands to follow our lead. Before you say we’re crazy, just think of how Beyond Meat is influencing the meat industry and Oatly the milk industry. Bravo! We aim to be this for coffee.​

FARMERS

OUR SOCIAL IMPACT
A 

LIVEABLE INCOME AS A FOUNDATION

LET'S FIX THE FUTURE!

(SNEAK PEEK 2 OF 3)

​​

In the future, we see much chaos, deep social cleavages, and ever-rising inequality leading to growing poverty, deforestation, and climate change. One thing is clear: now more than ever we need better business models designed to solve these problems rather than continue to add to them. With FairChain and Moyee, we’re building our company around Economic, Social and Environmental impact. The latest environmental impact update is in the CO2 performance ladder. We hope it inspires you to make a difference!​

Thanks for supporting us over the years and….

Let’s Fix the Future together.

Cheers!

Guido & Team Moyee

​

LET'S TALK NUMBERS

We started Moyee Coffee as a social enterprise, a business whose main objective was to deliver social impact and not shareholder profit. In those early days, when we first began to champion the cause of the smallholder coffee farmer we started offering, 20% premiums on coffee beans, twice what any other fair trade or ethical endeavor was offering. We thought this was pioneering and considered ourselves serious crusaders but little did we know.


By working with 100 smallholders in rural Ethiopia to improve the quality of their beans, we soon realized that our 20% premium was not nearly enough to provide our farmers with a decent income – not by a long shot! While our premium was helping farmers increase their annual coffee revenues from €400 to €500 our work with the farmers and research into a living income helped us understand that most coffee farmers would need to double and even triple take home pay from coffee to provide for the basic needs of food, health, education, shelter and a little savings that their families would need to escape poverty. We quickly realized that rather than the ‘the world’s fairest coffee company’ a more truthful description might have been to describe ourselves as ‘the world’s least unfair coffee company.’ Put simply, we went back to the drawing board to radically update our theory of change. In close collaboration with the FairChain Foundation, we developed a program that would “bring a living income to farmers by managing profitable farms and getting involved in value adding activities in order to improve the livelihoods and communities”. We pivoted thus from a 20% FairChain Premium towards a Living Income Differential.


Real impactful change, a living income for our farmers we realized will take time but we’re on a journey and season by season we are helping more and more farmers and their families to thrive while growing the finest fairchain coffee beans that are good for planet and people. Looking back over the past few years, we have continuously questioned the significance of our social impact. We are learning by doing. Our 20% FairChain premium payments have of course grown as our sales volumes have grown, which directly benefits farmers and their communities. We also know that this premium isn’t enough. Which is why we are focused on a concept we call the Living Income Differential, which gives us a much better understanding of our impact and how much we have closed the gap towards a living income.


We track our progress in three clear ways:

€1.065.000

PREMIUM PAID

We paid €1,065,000 in FairChain premium for our blends from Ethiopia and Kenya. On average we paid 300% more than the Fairtrade minimum price to our Ethiopian farmers. In Kenya we pay 20% on top of the farmer coop selling price set with other buyers.

1.577

FARMERS IN LIVING INCOME PROGRAM

If we measure FairChain awareness by cups, then in 2020 that awareness rings in at 13.6 million cups. This is the number of cups of FairChain coffee drank by our friends and fans. This is a radical increase from 3.7 million cups in 2015. We like to think we sparked a bona fide FairChain movement. Our ambition is to inspire consumers to make conscious decisions that have real impact.

€ 1.575.000

LIVING INCOME DIFFERENTIAL

In 2022, we invested €233,000 in our LivEable Income program. ThIs brings the total to €1,575,000 since the program began.

IMPACT EXPLAINED

LIVING INCOME DIFFERENTIAL

Living income is defined as sufficient income generated by a household to afford a decent standard of living for the household members. Elements of a decent standard of living include: a nutritious diet, clean water, decent housing, education, healthcare, transport, clothing and other essential needs, including a provision for unexpected events. Our living income differential is made up from the investment we make in programs that contribute to our Living Income Roadmap.


Our goal, however, is to replace these investments by paying a Living Income Reference Price to our farmers. This is the price needed for an average farmer household with a viable farm size and an adequate productivity level to make a living income from selling their crops.

MOYEE IS THE ONLY COFFEE COMPANY THAT PLACES A LIVING INCOME AT THE CORE OF WHAT WE DO AND HAS THE PROOF TO SHOW THE PROGRESS.

While continuing to work closely with and carefully monitor the progress of Limu 1 farmers, we have also begun a new living income intervention with 200 Ethiopian farmers (Limu 2). In 2021, we will expand our living income program to 12,000 farmers in southern Ethiopia and 2,600 farmers in Kenya. During this time, we will also unveil a campaign to reach new roasters to embrace and test our model.


The FairChain model aims to help farmers achieve living incomes not only by improving quality and yields but also by lowering production costs, invest in digitization, access to credit and healthcare. On top of that our coffee tree planting has the aim to double farmer income. We believe that the FairChain model has the potential to replace development aid in countries rich in natural resources, such as coffee.

​

A living income is defined as sufficient income generated by a household to afford a decent standard of living for the household members. Elements of a decent standard of living include: a nutritious diet, water, decent housing, education, healthcare, transport, clothing and other essential needs, including a provision for unexpected events. Because the road to a living income is not straight, we invest in a wide variety of activities to increase our odds of succeeding. Higher prices are only part of the solution – higher yields, lower production and living costs are needed as well.


The investment are admittedly high in the beginning, but become less as we reap the quality, yield and price benefits of our interventions. The average income for an Ethiopian farming family of 7 is €521 annually. Our living income benchmark is €1,055, which is based on coffee and non coffee incomes earned by our farmers in Limmu, Ethiopia. Since we began researching living income in our chain we have made it the central focus of our interventions. It has not always been easy to establish benchmarks due to, among other things, a bad harvest in 2018. So we created a pool of 100 farmers in Limmu to better assess the impact of our interventions. Before our interventions, these farmers earned €267 annually from coffee. Our intervention increased their income to €598. Close to what is need for a living income, but in 2019 it dropped dramatically to go up again in 2020.

ACHIEVEMENTS

#1 FROM 100 TO OVER 650 SMALLHOLDERS

When it comes to impact, size does matter. However, we see growth as a means, not an end. The more kilos you drink the more farmers we can support in our FairChain Farming program. These farmers are amongst the smallest and poorest in the region and have lived in poverty for generations.


Our Living Income Roadmap is their best – and often only – chance to turn their lives around. Our FairChain Farming program is instantly scalable and can accommodate up to 12,500 farmers. These are enough farmers to change the fate of an entire region and a significant upgrade for many, many farmers and their families.

#2 START OF THE 1 MILLION TREE REVOLUTION

Most of our farmers have less than one hectare of land and produce on average just 180 kg of green beans per hectare. It is absolutely essential then that we help them rejuvenate and/or replace their existing coffee trees in order to increase the quality of their beans and the size of their yields.


Planting trees plays an incredibly important role in our Living Income Roadmap. Last year we successfully supplied the first 35,000 seedlings to our farmers. We also invested heavily in two nurseries so that we can increase that number to 400,000 seedlings a year.

#3 FAIRCHAIN BLOCKCHAIN: DIGITALIZING FARMER PAYMENTS

In 2017, we were the first coffee company to put our farmer payments on the blockchain. We have continued to do so ever since.


Using the blockchain is not only a way to deliver on our brand promise or live up to radical transparency, it also gives us much better insights into our farmers’ earning capacity. This opens the door to farmer credit lines. It makes it possible to bank farmers, the vast majority of whom have been written off as unbankable.

#4 BANK ACCOUNTS, DIGITAL WALLETS, AND FEMALE EMPOWERMENT

Our FairChain colleagues spent the entire 2019 harvest in Limu, Ethiopia, opening some 371 new farmer bank accounts. 93 of those bank accounts were for women. The local bank couldn’t believe their eyes! Thanks to these bank accounts, farmers now have ID cards and digital wallets. Fast forward to now, and over 570 farmers have access to digital wallets.


Digital wallets are perfectly suited to farmer needs: they provide a reliable banking system that doesn’t require paper and gives them direct access to the bank. Another important advantage is that digital wallets empower women by giving them ownership over their own accounts. Finally, Moyee fans can contribute directly to farmers’ digital wallets without having to go through a middleman, including us!

#5 THE OPENING OF THE FIRST FAIRCHAIN WET MILL

We recently invested in the first FairChain wet mill, which we hope will lead to additional income for our farmers. Traditionally, wet mills are owned by wealthy farmers or co-ops who in turn keep most of the profits.

The profits generated by our FairChain wet mill will be shared with the farmer community. At the same time, our wet mill adds value by creating 118 seasonal jobs, the majority of which go to women.

OUR SOCIAL TO DO LIST

As we progress we plan to:

1. Opening two new wet mills in Ethiopia and scaling up the FairChain Farmer program with another 1,000 farmers.

2. Scale the FairChain Farming activities in Kenya (and soon Colombia)

3. Conduct a new Living Income Study in Ethiopia and create a Living Income Reference Price for Ethiopian coffee.

4. Introduce a new value-adding activity for farmers: husk processing to turn the fruit waste from the coffee cherry into a viable source of income for farmers such as compost for mushrooms or the fermentation and creation of pectin.

5. Unveil the first blockchain-powered micro loan to our farmers.

6. Launch version 2 of our unique farmer dashboard to create a direct relationship between coffee producers and coffee consumers and track our impact #storyproving.

We are very much learning by doing. This is all new territory for us as well, but we know where we are heading. By 2025, we aim to have 5,000 farmers on a credible road to a living income while also proving that all of our first wave of farmers in our program have indeed closed the poverty gap.

​

Aside from all that we actually want to encourage other coffee companies to follow our lead, adopt our open-source methodology and technology and put another 5,000 farmers on the road to a living income.

FORESTS

MOYEE IS CO2 NEUTRAL!
WITH EVERY KILO OF MOYEE, YOU HELP IN THE FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE.

LET'S FIX THE FUTURE!

(SNEAK PEEK 3 OF 3)

​​

In the future, we see much chaos, deep social cleavages, and ever-rising inequality leading to growing poverty, deforestation, and climate change. One thing is clear: now more than ever we need better business models designed to solve these problems rather than continue to add to them. With FairChain and Moyee, we’re building our company around Economic, Social and Environmental impact. The latest environmental impact update is in the CO2 performance ladder. We hope it inspires you to make a difference!

Thanks for supporting us over the years and….

Let’s Fix the Future together.

Cheers!

Guido & Team Moyee

​

LET'S TALK NUMBERS

When talking environmental goals, the figure our stakeholders care about most is our carbon footprint.

Broken down, we see our carbon footprint is lowest at the farmer level. This is because our farmers hand-pick the cherries and avoid pesticides and artificial fertilizers.

A recent win in our journey to reduce the footprint of our coffee was shipped to Ethiopia in 2020: a container full of solar panels. We will use these panels to replace the diesel generator at our Ethiopian wet mill, which will immediately lower our carbon footprint.

To measure the Environmental impact of FairChain we’ve created a fairly simple framework with three main impact indicators:

3KG

CARBON FOOTPRINT

Many coffees have a carbon footprint of 8 or 9kg of CO2 per 1kg bag of coffee, but Moyee Coffee’s is only 3.4kg. We still believe we can radically improve on this.

1361 HECTARES

OF FOREST PROTECTED

Over the last few years Moyee has been working hard to redesign our business model to not only battle deforestation, but to win back the forests already lost, to enable our coffee farmers to earn a living income from their beans while rewarding and celebrating their agroforestry coffee production.

2.692 MTON

CARBON SURPLUS

Our chain enjoys 2,692 tons of carbon surplus, which means we absorb more CO2 than we emit. This surplus does not include the result of our own ambitious carbon deployment program on the farm in Mizan where we protect 361 hectares of natural forest plantings in Ethiopia. Soon we’ll be able to increase our surplus even more by planting 400,000 coffee trees, which will absorb a further 1,900 tons of CO2.

IMPACT EXPLAINED

THE IMPORTANCE OF CARBON INSETTING​

Most of you have heard of offsetting, but what in the world is insetting? These days corporate titans looking to ease their environmental conscience and/or balance out their carbon emissions can easily pay someone to plant a few trees for them or invest in a few green projects.

Increasingly, however, this practice – called carbon offsetting – has come under activist fire as being little more than greenwashing.

Some critics have even compared it to the Catholic Church’s former practice of selling indulgences; as in, why change your behavior when you can buy off your sins?

To achieve net zero emissions by 2030, Moyee has integrated carbon-absorbing projects into our business model – projects focused on sustainable practices and reducing our carbon footprint within our own value chain.

This idea is generally referred to as carbon insetting, and it’s the driving force behind our 1 Million Tree Planting campaign, our low-carbon project in Kenya and our Caffeinated Reforestation project in Mizan, Ethiopia.

“Coffee is extremely sensitive to temperature rises. Climate adaptation measures are essential to protect current coffee production. The root cause of deforestation is low coffee earnings and non-profitable agroforestry.”

WHY TRUE PRICING MATTERS

From a production perspective, everything we eat, drink, wear and consume causes some kind of harm. Behind the production curtain looms poverty, child laboUr, climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, forced migration and other drivers of inequality.

Economists call all the dark elements created in the production process “negative externalities”. The major problem today is that the costs associated with all the negative externalities are almost always excluded in the pricing of products. They’re excluded in order to keep products artificially cheap. Huh?! How is that even possible?!

Let us explain. The classical economic theory guiding most business models today swear that the markets are always right. That the forces of supply and demand always lead to market equilibrium, and that competition always results in the efficient and fair allocation of resources.

But where can we find the monetization of negative externalities in this equilibrium? Well, we can’t because it’s not there. From an environmental perspective, this economic theory has failed us. This is why the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established by the United Nations are so freakin’ important. It creates a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for both people and planet. It rights the classical economic theory’s many wrongs. The UN’s SDGs require a radical mind shift in the way companies do business. Fortunately, radical mind shifts are Moyee’s raison d’être. From day one our mission has been to change the way coffee is grown, processed and sold.


​

By using the True Price method, we are finding ways to monetize the positive and negative externalities in our production process. The True Price method helps us better manage risks, steer innovations, reduce social and environmental costs and benchmark our prices against industry standards.


Our ambition is to offer the coffee world a business model that reduces negative externalities and helps fund positive externalities ranging from reforestation to climatesmart farms. The true price of a product is its market price plus the environmental and social costs that went into producing it.. Consumers today pay for the market price of a product. The external costs are almost always entirely ignored. Instead, these costs are passed down to other parties and our lovely planet. Our goal is to create a business model that generates positive externalities and cleans up 50 years of neo-liberal debris. Help us to Fix the Future!

MOYEE IS THE ONLY COFFEE COMPANY THAT CONSUMES MORE CO2 THAN IT PRODUCES. WITH EACH KILO YOU DRINK YOU HELP FIGHT CLIMATE CHANGE.


This is the great conundrum of the global coffee industry today.


Big Coffee companies generate huge profits for themselves while at the same time push millions of farmers under the poverty level, resulting in even more deforestation and even greater climate change. It’s one of the most vicious circles of our time.​

As we learned more about the challenges our farmers faced, it became massively clear to us how intertwined their futures were with our futures. As forest dwellers, our farmers are on the frontline of climate change. Their environmentally-friendly farming methods protect forests – forests necessary for our own survival in the west.

That said, over the last 20 years Ethiopia has lost approximately 18% of its forests, the equivalent of 71,100 thousand hectares, enough trees to absorb the entire annual CO2 emissions of The Netherlands. Each year, Ethiopia loses another 140,000 hectares to deforestation.

By working in the coffee industry, we’ve become climate activists out of necessity. At Moyee, we believe the root cause of deforestation – and the climate change deforestation catalyzes – is poverty. When coffee production revenue is too low to support farming families, farmers swap their semi agroforestry coffee production for cattle or food production that can feed their children.

ACHIEVEMENTS

#1 FROM 100 TO OVER 650 SMALLHOLDERS

As we’ve discussed earlier in this report, poverty and deforestation go hand in hand. Which raises the question: can you tackle both problems simultaneously? This is precisely what we’re attempting to do with our 1 Million Tree Revolution, a campaign focused on planting 1 million new coffee trees in our farming communities.


In addition to combatting deforestation and absorbing an estimated 1.9kg CO2 from the air (equivalent to 3.800 return flights between Amsterdam and Barcelona), the new trees could also potentially double the income of our farmers on average. In 2020 we grew 400,000 seedlings in a local nursery, seedlings that are now ready to be planted with the help of a highly engaging consumer campaign.

#2 LOW-CARBON COFFEE KENYA

Unlike Ethiopian farmers, those in Kenya use loads of synthetic fertilizer. When we started our FairChain Farming program in Kenya changing this became our focus. Last year we trained the first 2,400 farmers and together with them built the first facility that produces bio-compost and bio-fertilizers at lower cost than that of existing alternatives.

Not only does this create jobs, but it also lowers the cost of production for farmers and increasees their income, enhances soil fertility, improves the health of coffee plants and restores biodiversity. ‘Intercropping’ is an important part of our strategy because it leads to greater farmer welfare and greater food security for their families. Profitable farmers are crucial to a prosperous planet.

#3 RAINFOREST ALLIANCE CERTIFICATION

We’ve always been pretty outspoken about our dislike of certification programs. It’s not personal, it’s just that they are expensive and not designed for companies like Moyee already operating on the frontline of climate change. We’d rather invest all that money in our farmers, especially because most of what we do goes above and beyond typical certification norms.

We made the decision to join the Rainforest Alliance because, quite simply, some of our largest clients demanded it. And fair is fair, the environmental demands of RFA certification are quite useful. Since joining, we’ve certified 580 farmers in our FairChain Farming program. That said, we still believe certification programs are expensive. But it’s easier to pay for certification than continuously explain all the reasons against it, so RFA certified we are.

#4 WAKING UP TO LAST MILE

With so much focus on our farmers, we’ve often neglected impact programs closer to home in Amsterdam. Why bother with last-mile circularity, rooftop solar panels and office waste management when our farmers are living in poverty? Our mission was originally focused entirely on the first mile.


However, last year we stepped up our game and initiated an ambitious last-mile sustainability program that includes reusable bamboo coffee mugs, compostable to-go cups, a coffee waste upcycling service for our customers and recyclable bags. We are late to the last mile, we admit it, but we’re doing our damnedest to make amends.

#5 TRUE COST PRICING IN COLOMBIA

We invited CSR Netherlands Moyee to join the Futureproof Coffee Collective, a group of forward-thinking coffee companies interested in researching True Cost Pricing.


We have begun experimenting with True Cost Pricing for our farmer project in Floridablanca, Colombia. This project gives us greater insight and hands-on knowledge into the True Price methodology not only in Colombia, but also our impact programs in Kenya and Ethiopia.

Read CO2 policy statement HERE

Read HERE more about the Performance Ladder and Stichting Klimaatvriendelijk Aanbesteden & Ondernemen (SKAO).


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#6 CO2 PERFORMANCE LADDER

At Moyee Coffee, we are committed to making the world a better place, one cup at a time. That’s why we’re happy to share with you the CO2 Performance Ladder, a powerful tool to help organizations reduce their CO2 emissions. It offers not only a greener guide, but also a competitive advantage in environmentally friendly tenders.

The CO2 Performance Ladder consists of five levels of certification. Levels 1 to 3 focus on emissions within the organization and projects, while levels 4 and 5 also focus on the entire chain and sector. Each level requires that four core principles be met:

– Insight:  Mapping energy consumption and carbon footprint. 

– Reduction: Setting ambitious goals to reduce CO2 emissions. 

– Transparency: Open and consistent communication on CO2 reduction policies.
– Participation: Participation in sector-wide initiatives for joint carbon reduction.

At Moyee Coffee, we believe in doing what we say. With tools like the CO2 Performance Ladder, we are all contributing to a more sustainable future. Join us-together we can really make a difference.

Environmentally speaking, it would be better to stop drinking coffee altogether. God forbid! We at Moyee have made it our mission to be part of the solution, not the problem. When we opened our doors in 2012, we were not climate activists, nor did we pretend to be. None of us were manning the front lines of Seattle or Paris.



But in the past eight years we have personally witnessed the degradation of Ethiopia’s natural coffee landscapes through climate change. We’ve seen firsthand coffee farmers too poor and powerless to battle on their own the economic and political forces that lead to deforestation. For this reason we created Mizan, a model coffee farm in the Ethiopian highlands that is totally aligned with FairChain’s economic, social and environmental impact goals.



To be clear, we are coffee roasters, not coffee farmers. But to create a new paradigm for growing, producing and distributing coffee, we realized we had to literally get our hands dirty and step into farming.



With our Mizan farm, we have removed as many obstacles as possible to put our FairChain theory into practice. The goal is to create a blueprint for coffee production that will help farmers and forests not only survive the 21st century, but thrive in it.


DILEMMAS MIZAN FARM: IN SEARCH OF A NEW PARADIGM

Ever tried living entirely off less than 1 hectare of land? Well, 95% of Ethiopian coffee farmers do. It’s not much, trust us. So when we began searching for ways to help turn poverty farmers into profitable farmers, we had to address the issue of scale.

Of course, addressing scale alone is risky business as it leads to outsized focus on maximizing efficiency and profit as practiced by modern industrial style coffee farms – industrial farms that replace natural (and naturally shaded) forests with monocrops.

Sure, their overuse of toxic herbicides, pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, alongside wasteful water practices, increases yields, but they ultimately destroy topsoil faster than it can be replaced. So no, industrial farming is not the solution for raising smallholder coffee farmers out of poverty.

OUR ENVIRONMENTAL TO DO LIST

As we progress we plan to:

1.Replace our air transport from Addis by ship like we did with our Kenyan Coffees.


2.Up cycle the coffee husk at farm level to natural fertilizer, baking powder and pectine. Unveil Ethiopia’s first solar- powered wet mill.


3.Kickstart our low-carbon coffee project in collaboration with the Kenyan Coffee research Institute, Agriterra and the FairChain Foundation with the support by the Dutch Government.


4.We will boost our climate positivity by another 988 tons through our FairChain Caffeinated Reforestation Program, beginning with 247 hectares in Mizan, Ethiopia. This program addresses the dilemma of scale, farmer living income and biodiversity protecting through ingrowing.


5.Potentially creating a profitable blueprint for the Ethiopian coffee sector capable of elevating 1 million farmers out of poverty and transforming 3.6 million ‘lost’ hectares of forest into profitable semi agroforestry farms with increased biodiversity.


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FACTORIES

FORESTS

FARMERS

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