Celebrating the World of Coffee at Nestlé

Coffee is Nestlé’s biggest business and as we close this month of Coffee (on October 1st we celebrated International Coffee Day) I want to share with you our actions – in Portugal and around the world – that make sure you can continue to enjoy the best coffee experience.

We all know what an important part coffee plays in the Portuguese culture, but it might be less known that it is also our largest businesses in Nestlé Portugal. With three of the world's most iconic coffee brands – NESCAFé, NESPRESSO, and STARBUCKS – and four important local brands – BUONDI, SICAL, TOFA and CHRISTINA?– we offer great quality coffee for everyone’s individual taste, while together creating a positive impact through our sustainability programs.

1. Our Nescafé Plan is still growing strongly after ten years.

Nestlé just launched its Nescafé Plan 2030 on October 4th with an investment of over one billion Swiss francs by 2030. After a decade of endeavour, we chose to continue and add on to the work we have done until now. Our goals? To help drive regenerative agriculture, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and improve farmers’ livelihoods. These are big goals, and this plan is something I am extremely proud of.

Find out more about it on our global website and discover how Teresa Mendes and her team lead the "Cup of Respect" initiative in Portugal.

2. Green coffee is transformed in our Porto Factory to delight consumers in Portugal and around the world.

In September I had the opportunity to visit our Porto Factory, and meet Rui Vieira and his team. Our local coffee brands SICAL, BUONDI, TOFA and CHRISTINA are all produced in this factory and seeing how these products come off the line gave me a very different feeling of pride when I saw later in the day with Victor Martins and his team how our Out of Home customers served our coffee in their establishments. But Porto factory is not only working for our Portuguese consumers, we also produce NESCAFé and STARBUCKS products in this factory, exporting them to approximately 45 countries to delight consumers all over the world.?

And whilst I enjoyed a great coffee with my colleagues on site, we also discussed the initiative "Crescer Sustentável" [Growing Sustainably]. With this plan Nestlé Professional will ensure that by end of this year all green coffee used in production in the Porto factory will come from sustainable farming practices and guarantee that all our packaging will be 100% ready to recycle before 2025. And we also involve Partners and Customers as well as their Consumers with initiatives like the "Café Circular" project where Cafés and Bakeries offer our brands’ coffee grounds to any plant lover to take home and enrich their soils.

3. My first visit to a Nespresso coffee farm.

Nespresso is a business particularly close to my heart, where I worked for 12 years and which I also had the pleasure to lead in Portugal for a while. And I know that with Brigitte Felber and her team Nespresso Portugal is in great hands.

And after so many years working in Nespresso, I finally for the first time visited an actual Nespresso coffee farm and could see all the care that goes into our coffees before they end up in a beautiful capsule. It was an incredible journey and deepened the appreciation I already had for the work done by our farmers and agronomists. During this visit in Jardim, I got to see for myself how we are securing and protecting the future of high-quality coffee so that we don’t end up with an “empty cup” as so impactfully illustrated in the recent Nespresso campaign 'The Empty Cup'.?

__

Coffee is our jewel. And we will continue to protect it so that future generations can enjoy the quality coffee we drink today.