Hoping to capitalize on high prices, Japanese manufacturing conglomerates are getting into coffee growing. Plus, the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is impacting coffee communities, and Fairtrade launches a new geolocation mapping system to help its members comply with upcoming deforestation laws.
‘Ebola Strains Coffee Supply Chains, With Smallholders Most at Risk’ – via Dairy Reporter
Since mid-May, an outbreak of the Ebola virus has infected nearly 900 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo along the country’s eastern border with Uganda. So far, more than 200 have died. The outbreak has impacted coffee communities in both countries.
In DRC, On the Ground has launched an emergency response in collaboration with the Muungano Cooperative and the importer Coop Coffees. The groups have distributed hand-washing materials and healthcare information at coffee washing stations and collection points, as well as primary schools in North and South Kivu.
The outbreak has also disrupted production. On May 27, Uganda closed its borders with DRC for all non-essential traffic. As Teodora Lyubomirova writes for Dairy Reporter, this has impacted smallholder farmers in western Uganda, where much of the country’s coffee is grown.
Closing the border can make it harder for farmers to access things like fertilizer or find seasonal labor, researcher Alhassan Karakara told Lyubomirova. “Border closures would mean that fertiliser and other farm inputs can no longer cross into the country for farmers to access,” he said. “This will translate into lower productivity of farm produce and therefore, lower incomes for farmers.”
However, the DRC-Uganda border is “highly porous,” according to ReliefWeb, and coffee has historically been smuggled back and forth across it. The current border closure is hard to enforce. “When borders close, people often continue moving through informal routes, where health screening and surveillance are limited,” said Ugochi Daniels from the International Organisation for Migration. “The most effective response is coordinated action that keeps mobility visible, safe and monitored.”
Read the full story on how the Ebola outbreak has impacted coffee communities here.
‘Fairtrade Launches Digital System Ahead of EUDR’ – via Global Coffee Report
After being delayed twice, the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is finally due to come into effect for large coffee brands at the end of 2026. The legislation requires companies to prove that the coffee they import into the EU—the world’s largest coffee market—was produced without contributing to forest destruction.
The EUDR has been controversial since lawmakers introduced the legislation in 2019. While environmental organizations have welcomed the law, industry groups have criticized it for its potential impact on farmers. To ensure compliance, companies must provide data showing that their products weren’t grown on deforested land, a task that involves accurately mapping millions of small coffee farms. Getting that data wrong could mean farmers missing out.
Last week, the coffee nonprofit organization Fairtrade International launched a new tool called Plot Insights, a “digital system” that aims to help its members manage, analyze, and share geolocation data. The organization has previously supported its members with mapping their farms. The goal with the new tool is to help cooperatives and farmers ensure that the data they collect is accurate and complies with the EU’s complex requirements.
“Farmers are having to adopt new digital tools and map farm plots, which is an expensive burden in order to continue to be viable suppliers to the European market,” said Fairtrade’s senior advisor for climate and environment, Brenda Mariana Huerta García, in a press release.
Fairtrade will offer the tool for free to its more than 800 member cooperatives, who can upload geolocation data to the platform and receive feedback on accuracy and deforestation risk analysis. Cooperatives can use that analysis to prepare mitigation plans, including education or monitoring in high-risk areas, Fairtrade said in a press release.
Starting in October, cooperatives will also be able to use the platform to share geolocation data directly with buyers, embedding plot information directly in contracts. The goal is to streamline the process of data management and storage at a time when up-to-date geolocation information is more important than ever.
Plot Insight’s impact could be considerable: According to Fairtrade, there are more than 775,000 coffee farmers within its system, who together produced 578,000 metric tons of coffee in 2023.
Read more on Fairtrade’s deforestation reporting platform here.
‘Price Rises Lure More Japanese Companies Into Coffee Farming’ – via Kyodo News
Japan grows a small amount of coffee; its production is mostly concentrated on the tiny southern Okinawa Islands. There are about 50 farms spread across the islands, although only a handful process and sell their harvests. Others focus on agrotourism, as Okinawa is a popular tourist destination.
In the last few years, however, companies with no connection to coffee have entered the business, hoping to capitalize on global demand as green coffee prices rise. Rather than growing coffee the traditional way, they’re using greenhouses.
Nichibei United Corp. and Ishizuka Glass Co. are manufacturing companies based in Honchu, Japan’s largest island, and both are experimenting with growing coffee in greenhouses, according to Kyodo News.
Nichibei United Corp., an oil and gas conglomerate, has planted more than 1,100 trees in eight greenhouses in Okayama Prefecture since 2024.
Kenji Tsujino was transferred from the company’s petroleum-based detergent division to run the coffee operation, and admits that things haven’t gone particularly smoothly. The greenhouses flooded during the first year, which meant that coffee trees needed to be replanted and new drainage installed. “Agriculture is tough. We have faced a series of unexpected events,” Tsujino said.
In Aichi Prefecture, Ishizuka Glass Co., which manufactures various glass products, including tableware, started its own greenhouse coffee farm. It uses waste heat generated during the melting stage of the glass production process to heat the space. Currently, they’re trialing 10 different coffee varieties.
Ishizuka’s head of coffee production, Takaaki Niizuma, also noted the challenges involved. “We are still fumbling every day. But we dream of the day when we can deliver our coffee grown with heat from our plant throughout Japan.”
Read the full story on Japan’s greenhouse-grown coffee here.
More News
‘Rains Disrupt Brazil Coffee Harvest, Raising Disease Risk’ – via Reuters
‘Starbucks Korea To Temporarily Shut All Stores for History Lesson After Bungled Coffee Promotion’ – via The Guardian
‘World Coffee Research Launches New Breeding Tools Initiative’ – via Global Coffee Report
‘Colombian Police Seize 2.4 Metric Tons of Cocaine in Coffee Pellets’ – via Daily Coffee News
‘Cold Coffee Inventor Says Majority Investor Is Freezing Him Out’ – via Business Den
‘Record Participation in Cup of Excellence Guatemala’ – via Global Coffee Report
The Week in Corporate Coffeewashing
America loves coffee pods. According to Keurig, 33 million households in the United States have one of its brewers, and 42% of American adults have a single-cup machine at home.
While they are very convenient, coffee pod machines generate a lot of waste. Most pods are made from plastic, aluminum, or a combination of both. Globally, an estimated 39,000 pods are manufactured every minute, with the majority ending up in landfills. While recyclable and compostable alternatives are increasingly available, they face their own issues. For example, many regions lack appropriate recycling or composting facilities. Wouldn’t it be great if pods didn’t need packaging at all?
Some companies are working on it. In 2022, a Swiss brand called CoffeeB introduced the Coffee Ball, a sphere of ground coffee coated in a protective seaweed layer. In 2024, we brought you news of Keurig’s “sustainable” plastic-free alternative: the K-Round, a single-serve coffee puck. Now Lavazza has followed suit, launching a new system called Tablì, which it bills as “the most significant reinvention of single-serve coffee in a generation.”
The Tablì machine uses what Lavazza calls tabs, small, round discs made using a proprietary technology that compresses ground coffee. Similar to the K-Round and the Coffee Ball, Tablì tabs are plastic-free. However, unlike those other versions, which have a plant-based coating, Tablì tabs are just coffee—they have no coating, according to Lavazza.
Much of the news coverage on the Tablì system has leaned into the plastic-free, sustainability angle. “Lavazza’s newest single-serve machine is brewing up a new promise to coffee lovers: less plastic waste,” reported Fast Company.
We’re definitely fans of reducing plastic waste, but there’s more nuance to the story. In order to use a Tablì tab, you need a whole new machine: current Lavazza models aren’t compatible with the new format. This was also the case with the K-Rounds, and new machines mean more waste.
It’s also worth noting that both Lavazza and Keurig have run afoul of government watchdogs over their sustainability claims. Canada’s competition bureau fined Keurig $3 million in 2022 for “false or misleading claims” over the recyclability of its pods. And last year, the United Kingdom’s advertising standards authority banned an online Lavazza ad because it implied that the company’s pods could be composted at home, when they in fact needed to be sent to an industrial facility.
Overall, it’s good that companies are developing more sustainable ways to brew coffee. However, considering the sheer number of existing pod machines out there, maybe they should focus on making their fancy new plastic-free pucks and tabs backward-compatible instead.
Beyond the Headlines
‘Twenty Years of the Coffee Barometer’ by Fionn Pooler
‘How Cooperatives Are Transforming Coffee Production in Kenya’ by Oglah Morogo
