Company Story

Anne MacCaig, CEO of Cafédirect and winner of the best female-led ethical business award at this year’s Triodos Women in Ethical Business Awards, talks about the 15 years since her company supplied one of the first FAIRTRADE certified products to the shops.

How did Cafédirect start?

When the International Coffee Agreement collapsed in 1989 market prices plunged, and millions of smallholder farmers around the world faced a very uncertain future. Three coffee growing communities - in Peru, Costa Rica and Mexico - each shipped a single container of coffee, loaned on trust, to charitable groups in the UK. The beans were roasted and sold through church halls, charity shops and at local events. Cafédirect grew out of the passion of individuals and small organisations to help make trade fairer and that passion is still evident. We have a lot of committed grassroots supporters and we have lots of small shareholders.

Tell us about yourself

I arrived at Cafédirect in March 2008. My background includes working in the UK and internationally with brands like Persil, Dove and Age Concern. As Marketing Director of Ribena, I worked with British blackcurrant farmers and The Wildlife Trusts to increase biodiversity on British blackcurrant farms. Cafédirect is my perfect role, combining small-scale agriculture with social justice and working across different cultures.

Do you still have links with Coocafe in Costa Rica, the first producer of FAIRTRADE certified coffee?

We do. Alvaro Gomez from Coocafe has recently joined our Board.

What does the future hold for Cafédirect?

We want to carry on being innovative and pioneering, for example, we want to work more in partnership with our growers and give them a more central role in the company. We must continue to evolve in order to best represent the concerns of the growers and, right now, one of the most important issues facing them is climate change. This is why, over the course of the past three years, we’ve invested almost half a million pounds in a pioneering new venture known as AdapCC – a series of replicable adaptation strategies to tackle problems that smallholder farmers are already facing such as droughts and new types of pests. We are also placing quality and taste at the top of the agenda and I’m looking forward to helping our producers bring
more products to the market.

www.cafedirect.co.uk

© Winter 2009 Fair Comment