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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
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 businessmodels. 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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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