Coffee for good

We’ve created a downloadable toolkit which shows exactly how the organisations behind Coffee For Good are helping farmers to grow their businesses while protecting the biodiversity of their land

In 2016, Kahlúa embarked on an ambitious 10-year project: Coffee for Good.

It involved four remote coffee-growing villages in Veracruz, the birthplace of Kahlúa.

The goal: By 2022, these small communities would be able to grow enough coffee to provide 100% of the coffee used in Kahlúa.

This year, we’re proud to say we achieved that goal.

But Coffee For Good isn’t just about Kahlúa. It’s about putting down strong roots to ensure a brighter future for our coffee farmers – so they can succeed with or without us.

To help make that happen, we also made the commitment to improve living conditions in the villages and support farmers to build financially resilient businesses.

Six years in, that story is only just beginning.

Meet the people behind Coffee for Good

Our film tells the inspiring story behind our 2022 Coffee For Good harvest

How Coffee For Good began

Kahlúa has always bought coffee from Veracruz and more recently, 100% Arabica through our Mexican suppliers, Cafiver.

But although we knew our suppliers, we realised that we knew almost nothing about the coffee growers themselves.

So, as the world’s leading coffee liqueur brand, we knew we had to act.

We collaborated with local NGO Fondo Para La Paz, in conjunction with INIFAP (Mexican Ecological Institute) and coffee farming experts Cafecol, to fund their sustainable development plan.

The project started with one community in Veracruz – Ocotempa.

Today, Coffee For Good is working with a total of four remote villages in the mountains of Veracruz (Ocotempa, Atempa, Oxtotitla, Coxititla) and approximately 473 individual farmers.

What Coffee for Good has achieved so far…

How Coffee For Good works

The aim of Coffee For Good is to help communities in Veracruz sustain themselves, so we don’t buy all of the coffee the farmers grow – ensuring that with or without Kahlúa, they can continue to make a good living.

To make that happen, we follow Fondo Para La Paz’s three-pronged approach to sustainable development, which takes into account these factors, each of which informs the other:

Environmental

Farmers need help and education to make the most of their land and the crops that they grow.

Economical

This allows them to increase their incomes and become financially independent.

Social

For their businesses to succeed over the long term, creating social cohesion within communities is vital.

Get the full story…

We’ve created a toolkit which shows exactly how Coffee For Good is helping farmers to build more robust businesses and improve the biodiversity of their land.

Because Coffee for Good is bigger than our brand. The coffee-growing families the project is working with are learning new skills, building resilience against climate change and financial hardship, and passing on that knowledge to others.

So while Kahlúa has more sources for coffee, local farming communities are thriving, too.

And that’s got to be good.