Cafédirect | Fairtrade Coffee, Tea & Cocoa Products

Cafédirect – 2009 Highlights

posted at 2:19pm, 04 Jan 10 by Siobhan [ 0 comments ]

2009 was a busy year for everyone at Cafedirect…..

January we were mostly busy preparing for the launch of our blog coinciding with TasteFair in February – our nine day event we held during Fairtrade Fortnight. We had a photo exhibition and programme of speaker events including Oliver Heath, River Cottage Chef Tim Maddams and Joe Swift talking about sustaianable food and design, and lots of great live music with friends.

March kept us busy with serving coffee at Paris Fashion Week, our AGM, followed by the Cafedirect Producers Conference in April which saw Cafedirect coffee and tea partners from around the world come together in London to discuss ways of working.

Getting ready for the conference.

The first of our new look packs arrived at the office in April ready to hit the shelves in May. We caught up with Novatus Tiiigelerwa, General Manager of KDCU in Tanzania, to see what he thought of the new look Rich Roast Coffee which features Emiliana Aligaesha – a farmer and Board member of KDCU. See what he says here.

Jon Snow and Yasmin LOWRES In May we also survived the rain and met some of you at this year’s Hay Festival in May, even getting a live demo of how one of you likes to make your coffee! We sampled our deicious new teas - the Earl Grey went down a treat with Jon Snow (pictured left) amongst others!

June was an action packed month! Whitney and Anne made their debut on Nicaraguan tv during a visit to our coffee partners in Nicaragua. The winners were announced for the best female led ethical businesses in Britain. We were very excited and proud that the Ethical Business category was awarded to our very own Anne MacCaig , CEO of Cafédirect. June also saw the start of our ‘Friend of the Month’ blog series, kicked off with Dayve Dean - long time friend and Kilimanjaro fan!

August saw the creation of our coffee tasting kits, including an evening with the East End WI. These kits were used by Women’s Insitutes, Fairtrade groups and other grassroots organisations to spread the word about our award-winning single origin coffees. Thanks again for taking part and stay tuned for more exciting kits during Fairtrade Fortnight 2010!

In September we held an office bake-off to celebrate our newly re-packaged and renamed San Cristobal drinking chocolate and our Decaffeinated fresh ground coffee both winning Great Taste awards (adding to eight Great Taste awards we received in 2008!). The bake-off brought out the competitiveness & creativity in all of us and led to some delicious recipes, from delicate and spicy Decaff Pistachio Paradise to the indulgent Chocolate Guinness Cake.

Our exciting competiton to win a gorrilla safari in Uganda was launched in October. For your chance to win this trip of a lifetime, simply look out for the special packs of our Everyday Tea 80s that have a gorilla on the front. You can then enter the promotional code online here (closing date is May 2010).

November saw the launch of our new online shop as well as our competition to win a Gourmet Getaway at Michelin Chef Michael Caines’ Gidleigh Park Hotel. There’s still time to enter so if you haven’t already, you can do so here! Jacquie paid a visit to Michimikuru and Kiegoi , our tea parters, in Kenya and participated in the AdapCC Regional workshop conference along with delegates from all over East Africa.

AdapCC earned some well-deserved attention in the press in November and December. A piece by Janice Warman in The Spectator highlights the impressive gains made by tea farmers in Kenya, going so far to say that “this is where Barack Obama should be: walking the muddy fields of his father’s native country” to prepare for his debut at Copenhagen.

In December Raymond Kimaro retired from the Cafédirect Board of Directors and welcomed Andrew Ethuru from Michimikuru as the newest board member.

Finally, it was tough but we chose a winner for our Fairtrade teatowel design competition. Look out for this teatowel during Fairtrade Fortnight when they’ll be available to buy!

Hopefully 2010 will be as rewarding and action packed!

Happy New Year from the team at Cafédirect!

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