PUTTING ROOTS TO SUSTAIN THE COMMUNITY
MALAYSIANS love their coffee.
We love it so much, we consume close to five billion cups of it a year, which is an astonishing figure considering the percentage of our 30 million-plus population that imbibes the dark, versatile drink whose popularity cuts across demographics.
Speaking to Nescafe’s business executive officer at Othman Chraibi at Nestle Berhad’s headquarters in Petaling Jaya about the Grown Respectfully programme is a wonderfully eye-opening learning experience even for the most ardent coffee fan such as this writer.
Chraibi, originally from Morocco who has spent the last two years in Malaysia on top of his time in Switzerland and Indonesia in a decade-plus of service with the global food and beverage (F&B) giant, spills the beans on the corporation’s latest efforts in this region, and what it means for both those further upstream and for those for whom a hot cup of coffee is as essential as sustenance.
“The Grown Respectfully programme is an initiative that sits within and under the umbrella of our purpose as Nestle group,” Chraibi begins, “and that purpose is about enhancing the quality of life and contributing to a healthier future.”
This purpose is designed to support the core value that runs through the entire organisation, said to be the largest F&B company in the world and the largest purchaser of green coffee beans, and that value is respect.
“Looking at our corporate social responsibility, we look at different dimensions and one of the key dimensions is communities. As we source raw materials from locations across the globe, farmers have an important place in our supply chain,” he states, and more importantly, he adds, “they have a role in the quality of the raw materials that we procure from them.” The corporation cares about the quality it brings to consumers, and equally meaningfully, to sustain that quality in responsible fashion.
“Trust is a big part of consumers choosing one brand over another,” he intones, “and quality research begins as far as upstream all the way to our factories and distribution network.”
The company is looking at is how it can make a difference in Malaysia beyond its facility in Shah Alam that receives imported green beans for processing and roasting.
Which is why Nestle Malaysia, strong in many categories with products such as Milo and Maggi, has teamed up with key stakeholders such as the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) and the Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (Mardi), among others, to ensure the smooth transition from the design phase to the implementation stage of the Grown Respectfully programme here.
Simply put, the corporation is engaging, by mid-2020, a total of 200 farmers in Kedah during the pilot phase with whom to begin producing coffee beans locally, starting with 50,000 seedlings over 40 hectares of land to eventually produce 100 tonnes of Robusta coffee beans, produced by Grown Respectfully farmers in Malaysia. Individual farms occupy less than a hectare each. That’s the equivalent of 12 million cups of coffee.
“Partnering with government bodies makes a difference in the lives of these farmers, as the programme is more organised and the quality – a non-negotiable commitment – is maintained,” he emphasises, detailing how the company trains the farmers and equips them with the right materials (parasiteand disease-resistant trees and seedlings from the company’s research and development centres) and methodologies with which to kick-start their coffee farming.
And the best part is local smallholder multi-cropping farmers (farmers can grow coffee in between rubber trees, for example) being given the opportunity to earn from a supplementary revenue stream, while coffee drinkers can sip with pride that the beans were locally-produced and responsibly-sourced.
“Malaysia is sitting in between coffee-producing countries,” says Chraibi, referring not just to the global “coffee belt” that stretches from the northern part of the South American continent to its equatorial cousins in Africa, but also to Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
In fact, Nestle has successfully championed the Grown Respectfully programme with local farmers in countries over 15 countries, including China, Colombia, Mexico and Ivory Coast.
And here’s something some of us may not know: it takes three years from first seedling to full harvest. Digest that and send gratitude to our Kedahan farmer the next time it takes those precious minutes to brew your next morning cuppa.