Nestlé’s coffee brand surpasses regenerative agriculture goal for 2025

Dive Brief:

• Nescafé sourced 32% of its coffee from farmers that implemented regenerative agriculture practices last year, surpassing a 2025 goal of sourcing 20% of coffee from such methods, parent company Nestlé announced Wednesday.
• The instant coffee brand — the largest from the Swiss food and beverage giant — launched a program in 2022 to help farmers transition to sustainable practices that improve productivity, cut spending and reduce greenhouse gas emissions linked to coffee production. Farmers that adopted this “Nescafé Plan 2030” achieved an emissions reduction between 20% to 40% per kilogram of unroasted coffee beans last year, per the company.
• Nescafé counts the progress towards its goal of lowering its overall carbon footprint and sourcing half of its coffee from farmers that incorporate regenerative agriculture practices.

Dive Insight:

Nescafé said its program encourages farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture practices. These include optimizing fertilization, which improves quality and soil health, in addition to reduced carbon dioxide; planting cover crops, that help in improving biodiversity, soil health and reducing dependency on agrochemicals; and land restoration, which helps them plant native trees to capture carbon dioxide in and near the coffee farms and improves biodiversity and water management.

The program focuses on improving the livelihoods of the sourcing farmers and the communities they live in and includes social initiatives like human rights and child protection. The coffee brand said the latter services include monitoring and bettering children and workers’ rights across Nescafé’s supply chains.

Coffee is one of the world’s most traded agricultural commodities, but a recent analysis by the Carbon Disclosure Project found that the amount of land suitable for coffee cultivation and production could reduce by 48% to 97% by 2050 in key regions due to climate change. The study said most of coffee’s carbon footprint — 75% to 91% — is generated before the coffee beans even leave the farm. Key factors contributing to the generated emissions come from land use, deforestation, fertilizer and processing methods. Hence, incorporating regenerative agriculture practices is more important than ever.

“Farmers are becoming increasingly aware of the benefits of these [regenerative agriculture] practices, as shown by the increased adoption rates,” Axel Touzet, head of Nestlé’s coffee brands strategic business unit, said in a June 11 release. “This encourages us to continue the work we do with our partners, suppliers and farmers in the regions where we source our coffee.”