Friday Fun – 3 day weekend!

posted at 9:40am, 06 Aug 10 by Cafédirect HQ [ 8 comments ]

It’s that time again…Friday Fun time! The weekend is literally hours away and I’m sure by now you already have an hour by hour plan of how it will be spent!

Today we’d like you to just close your eyes and imagine a miracle happens; you have a 3 DAY weekend! What would you do with that extra day? Where would you go and who would you share the extra day with?!

Maybe you’d decide to go to a festival or weekend away to somewhere you’ve never been before, or maybe simply enjoy the extra day catching up with friends over a cup of coffee! The person with the most imaginative answer wins some delicious Cafédirect coffee & a stylish eco mug!

Post your response on this blog post by 5.30pm today. The winner will be chosen from all entries received and announced on the blog on Monday. Prizes can only be sent to a UK or Republic of Ireland address. Good luck!

The Majomut experience

posted at 3:05pm, 09 Jun 10 by Cafédirect HQ [ 0 comments ]

Cafédirect’s Paul Perezgrovas recently visited some of our Mexican coffee partners where he found out about an interesting project the coffee farmers are involved in.

I visited Union de Ejidos Majomut, one of our partners from Chiapas, in the Mexican highlands recently.  Knowing that the Cafédirect London office have been busy growing our own fruit & veg I decided to find out what a smallholder producer grows in their farms (as well as coffee of course!).

I was amazed to know that Majomut runs a programme with the farmers’ wives to promote organic growing. Manuel Lopez (pictured left), Board member of Majomut,  told me that the programme is focused on harvesting tomatoes, onions, spinach, carrots and chillies for self consumption and  food security.

The co-operative also have collective poultry farms supported in part by the Fairtrade social premium. This is a very interesting programme because everything is grown collectively, and at the end, products are divided between everyone who takes part in the project.

I wonder if Cafédirect will do the same once we have our first office veg harvested?  Do you know any project in your community similar to the Majomut Experience?

You can taste the coffee from smallholder farmers in Majomut in our Medium, Rich & Decaffeinated Roast & Ground Coffees. Look out in your local shops for special packs of these with free basil, parsley and coriander seeds so you can get growing too!

We’ll have regular updates from Paul over the next few weeks so stay tuned to hear more from some more of our coffee partners.

Friday Fun – Easter decorations!

posted at 11:18am, 26 Mar 10 by Cafédirect HQ [ 11 comments ]

Easter is almost upon us so we have some Easter style fun today! Some of you may remember last year at Easter Alex got creative with our Everyday Tea and eggs, creating some stylish marbled eggs.

Everyday Tea Marbled Eggs

Today we’d like to hear your creative ideas! Tell us what decorations you could make using our tea or coffee. Would you make something edible like Alex’s marbled eggs? Or would you use your empty packs to upcycle something? Have a look at our Tea Party photos for inspiration. We made bunting, earrings & cakes – can you get more creative?!

The most creative decoration idea wins. The winner will receive a Divine Easter egg & some tea or coffee of their choice!

You have until 5.30 today to enter. Post your entry in the comment box below. The most creative entry (as chosen by the Cafédirect team) will be chosen and announced on Monday on our blog. Prizes can only be sent to a UK or ROI address.
If you want to try marbling eggs of your own, follow the steps here. Our Tea Party kits contain 3 packs of tea, so why not get one of these here and try Earl Grey and English Breakfast marbled eggs too!

Latest update from Gumutindo, Uganda

posted at 2:36pm, 17 Mar 10 by Cafédirect HQ [ 3 comments ]

We’ve recently received an update from Gumutindo, one of our producer partners in Uganda, whose growers suffered devastation due to vast mudslides on the evening of  March 1st 2010.  Emmanuel Wandega is the Information and Communications Manager and has told us:

“There no words to adequately describe the tragedy that befell some of our farmers.

We dispatched a team on 6th March 2010 to establish how many of our farmers have been affected in the village of Bumayoga and in what aspects. The purpose here was that instead of duplicating the kind of relief that Government and other relief agencies are giving the survivors (such as blankets and food), we want to identify specific needs of the affected individuals. We believe that our assistance should be of a medium to long term nature and should target the community as well as the individuals.”

We are in the process of discussing the assistance required by the Gumutindo growers and how we might work with them to acheive this. The Co-perative head office team are visiting two other local villages that were affected, Bukalasi and Konokoyi, after which we will have a fuller picture.

It is in the face of this type of disaster that the Cafédirect model of having long-term relationships with growers is so important and so relevant. Unlike most other companies, we don’t buy from a Fairtrade register or from middlemen at an auction, we buy directly from the growers. So we know the people we deal with and build strong relationships with them. When disasters like this happen and their crop is destroyed or they have difficulties getting their crop to transport links, we aim to understand how best we can work in partnership to support them through their recovery process.