Starbucks Mexico further supports local coffee communities with ecological coffee wet mill donation in Zongozotla, Puebla

• Starbucks Mexico, in collaboration with Starbucks Farmer Support Center, partnered with Fondo para la Paz I.A.P. to install an ecological coffee wet mill that will support more than 9,600 coffee growers annually by improving productivity, quality and profitability, while reducing their environmental footprint.
• This initiative is part of the Starbucks Mexico’s “Todos Sembramos Café” program, through which the company has donated more than 3 million rust-resistant coffee trees to coffee growers in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Puebla.

Mexico City – As Starbucks commemorates its 20-year anniversary in Mexico, it remains committed to being a resource-positive company and reinforces its support of coffee growing communities in Mexico by donating an ecological coffee wet mill to the Zongozotla Coffee Cooperative in Totonacapan, Puebla. The ecological coffee wet mill will help improve productivity, quality and profitability for local farmers, while reducing the environmental footprint generated from processing coffee.

Starbucks Mexico, in collaboration with the Starbucks Farmer Support Center located in Chiapas, is partnering with Fondo para la Paz I.A.P, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the development and well-being of indigenous communities in Mexico, to install an ecological coffee wet mill, which will support more than 9,600 coffee growers annually within the cooperative.

“At Starbucks, we recognize the resilience of local coffee growers, and we are grateful for the work they do each day to bring quality coffee to the world. This donation is a testament to our long-term commitment to Mexican coffee producers and our dedication to serving our customers responsibly sourced coffee of the highest quality,” said Desirée León, sustainability leader at Starbucks Mexico.

Coffee producers of the Totonacapan Coffee Cooperative in Puebla are responsible for transforming the cherries into dry parchment coffee, through pulping, fermentation, washing and drying of the grain.

“Processing coffee is a manual job that takes around four hours to process a minimum of 4 tons of coffee cherry and uses 10 to 20 liters of water per kilo of coffee parchment,” explained Alfredo Nuno, director of Starbucks Farmer Support Centers, where agronomists and quality experts work alongside farmers, sharing tools and information to help increase productivity and the quality of coffee on their farms, with the goal to improve their livelihoods.

“For coffee growers, having access to adequate training to use this ecological coffee wet mill will make coffee processing easier and faster while contributing to the reduction of water usage in green coffee processing,” added Nuno.

The donation of the ecological coffee wet mill is also part of Starbucks “Todos Sembramos Café” program, which first launched in Mexico in 2014. Since then, the program has donated more than 3 million rust- resistant coffee tress to Mexican coffee growers in Chiapas, Oaxaca and Puebla.

The success of Starbucks Mexico’s Todos Sembramos Café inspired the creation of the company’s “100 Million Trees Commitment” program in the United States. To date, the programs have collectively distributed more than 20 million coffee trees to Mexican producers, including members of the Totonacapan Coffee Cooperative in Puebla.

“The ecological coffee wet mill donated by Starbucks Mexico to the Totonacapan Coffee Cooperative is an example of an intelligent and sensible bet on the needs and potentialities that the company has seen in the coffee farmers of the region. Fondo para la Paz has been proud to be part of this great initiative. We know that this wet mill will be a reference of good practices and development of a coffee-growing community,” said Magali Jauregui, general director of Fondo para la Paz.

The distribution of ecological coffee wet mills builds on Starbucks multi-decade aspiration of becoming a resource-positive company, reducing its global carbon, water and waste footprint by half and, more recently, committing to conserve water usage in green coffee processing by 50% by 2030. The company has contracted the purchase and distribution of more than 1,200 new ecological coffee wet mills to coffee farmers in Mexico and other coffee-growing countries around the world. The result has been up to 80% water savings in coffee processing where installed.