The 5 de junio cooperative in Nicaragua was arguably the most conspicuous success story during the three years of the CAFE Livelihoods project. The cooperative took innovative approaches to improve both the quality of its coffee and the quality of life of the communities where its members live, scoring impressive gains on both counts.
A little over a year ago, in a post on industry reinvestment at origin, I raised the prospect of “harmonized investment” — complementary, non-overlapping investments in the coffeelands by diverse actors on the coffee chain. Recent events have inspired me to revisit the idea.
Social Return on Investment, or SROI, is a holistic approach to measuring return on investment that goes beyond financial returns to consider also an investment’s social, economic and environmental impacts. The farmers of the 5 de junio cooperative in Nicaragua, in partnership with the Fabretto Foundation, a local NGO dedicated to promoting food security, seem […]
I managed to get into Peregrine Espresso‘s new 14th Street location today to try some 5 de junio coffee and see how the café is communicating to its customers its commitment to reinvest in development projects in the communities of 5 de junio’s members. Both — the coffee and the communication — were swell. [slidepress […]
…the 5 de junio cooperative in Nicaragua got even more good news. Peregrine Espresso, the quality-obsessed Washington, DC, coffeehouse started by Counter Culture émigré Ryan Jensen, announced that it will donate $0.25 per cup and $1 per bag of all sales of its 5 de junio coffees — the pulp-natural espresso and single-variety maragoype microlots […]
I am 10 days and about 800 long-slog miles into a visit to the coffeelands in Nicaragua that will end tomorrow when I get on a flight home to Guatemala. One of the highlights of the visit so far was having lunch earlier this week with Don Jaime Molina on his Monte Cristo farm. Jaime placed second at the Nicaragua Cup of Excellence competition in April; a few days before our visit, his coffee sold at auction for $12.55 a pound.
