JDE Peet's is a global player in the coffee and tea industry with brands such as Douwe Egberts, Pickwick, and Senseo in its portfolio. The company is one of the largest buyers of green coffee worldwide, sourcing beans from 135 regions across more than 20 countries on three continents.
Sustainability has been an important concern for the company for decades, as has ensuring long-term production, with full awareness of how dependent it is on nature.
All locations where JDE Peet's sources coffee beans have their specific characteristics, assets, and weaknesses. Soil depletion is a risk present everywhere, although not to the same extent. To identify this, Arcadis ranks all sourcing regions according to their risk profile based on the current state of the soil and the volume of coffee beans coming from that region.
We then map the agricultural practices used on coffee farms in the regions. Based on indicators such as the use of external fertilizer and the presence of shade trees, we define six types of farms, ranging from monoculture to farms with more mixed crop use to agroforestry.
JDE Peet's has long been a trendsetter in sustainability in the agrifood sector. Its partnership with Arcadis reinforces that pioneering role, driven not by certain laws or regulations but by the company’s longstanding commitment to responsible sourcing and sustainable food and agriculture.
The result of our studies is a methodology that JDE Peet's can use now and in the future, based on the risk scores of the different regions and a corresponding action plan per region. With this, JDE Peet's can make targeted decisions on where to invest in improvement projects or where to impose stricter requirements throughout the supply chain.
Climate change and natural degradation are huge threats to the coffee sector. A transition to regenerative agriculture is essential to guarantee coffee in the future. JDE Peet's is playing a leading role in the industry in this regard. Together with Arcadis, and its expertise in sustainability policy and business consulting, we are making coffee farming friendlier to the environment.
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