News

Twin has been awarded the prestigious Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Sustainability Award 2014 for an innovative project which saw the launch of the UK’s first single origin coffee from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) in Sainsbury’s last year. The project focused on achieving consistent, premium grade coffee from the Sopacdi cooperative in Eastern DRC to sell to mainstrea…

Call on businesses to smash ‘glass ceiling’ for women small farmers who play a vital role in global food production Many businesses are unaware of the crucial role women play in supplying the ingredients they depend on for their products, as this contribution is often unrecognised, unpaid and invisible, says a new report Empowering Women Farmers in Agricultural Value Chains launched today (October…

Christiana Ohene-Agyare, Kuapa Kokoo’s first female president, died unexpectedly this Sunday morning in hospital at the age of 54. Known to Kuapa’s 65,000 members as Madam Christiana, the popular leader of Ghana’s largest farmer’s union is credited for her significant achievements in empowering women members. She championed a system of quotas for women across all levels of the union’s governance a…

The ethical trading organisation Twin today launches a new initiative to help businesses secure smallholder supply chains in a changing climate at their roundtable conference Make Climate Change Your Business. Adapt Now’s first project, delivered in partnership with Marks & Spencer (M&S), coffee roaster Matthew Algie and Twin, will tackle water shortages on smallholder coffee farms in Peru. The in…

Raúl del Águila Hidalgo, General Manager of Cocla, sadly passed away on Wednesday 13th February 2013. Raúl was an inspirational leader of smallholder producers, not only in the Valle de La Convención, Cusco but also in the rest of Peru, Latin America and the world as a whole. Over the last twenty years, Raúl worked tirelessly on behalf of smallholder farmers, always ensuring that their voice was h…

Michaela Strachan presents a new film produced by Twin on the critical issue of food safety in food security. It is estimated that 4.5 billion people living in developing countries are chronically exposed to aflatoxin as a result of eating contaminated food. The toxin, produced by a fungus that grows on crops such as maize and groundnuts, causes childhood stunting and around one quarter of all liv…

If you’re a coffee connoisseur or keen to buy a product with a feel good factor, the latest addition to Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference range – Mzuzu Fairtrade Ground Coffee – is the perfect choice. With a citrus flavour, floral notes and a smooth, toffee finish, the coffee is grown by the Mzuzu cooperative high in the Misuku hills, in the northernmost region of Malawi. Behind the sleek packagin…

With funding from DFiD’s FRICH programme, Twin is working with a consortium of businesses to develop unique gourmet coffees from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and bring them to market through Sainsbury’s in the UK. The DRC coffee will be produced by Twin member co-operative Sopacdi, an inspiring organisation working to rebuild coffee production in its corner of the war-scarred East Congo …

Twin has been running a three-year sustainable coffee production pilot in Malawi. As the pilot reaches its conclusion we can report impressive progress in sustainable farming and tangible benefits to participating farmers. The pilot was implemented with the Misuku Co-operative, members of the Mzuzu Coffee Union in Malawi, as part of a Twin and Sainsbury’s DFiD-funded project. Twin visited the orga…

Last week the Bududa District of Mount Elgon, Uganda, was hit by a landslide which engulfed three villages and killed an estimated 18 people (reported by both the Uganda Red Cross Society and Uganda’s daily newspaper New Vision). This is the third such landslide in as many years. In March 2010, following extremely heavy rains, a devastating landslide killed over 300 people in the Bududa District a…