20 Years of ICP
Focusing on People from 2001 to 2021
"The fire was lit and kept alive by all ICP members."
Michael R. Neumann, Member of the Advisory Council of Neumann Kaffee Gruppe set the spark 20 years ago: "The fire was lit and kept alive by all ICP members." It was kept alive for two decades.
Back in 2000, the coffee crisis was causing hardships for millions of smallholder coffee farmers. Many companies felt the need to act. Michael R. Neumann – then CEO of Neumann Gruppe – took the initiative: He met with some of his most relevant corporate partners like Tchibo in Germany, Löfbergs in Sweden, Paulig in Finland, and Lavazza in Italy.
The idea: If everyone is working alone towards coffee sustainability, they won't achieve enough. It is only by working together that things can be changed. This is how International Coffee Partners was founded in 2001: A group of dedicated coffee companies decided to cooperate pre-competitively and join forces to support smallholder coffee farming families improve their livelihoods. The key element from the outset were family businesses sharing the same values and building the core of this new initiative.
Years of Growth and Development
The first projects started in Guatemala and Honduras. Peru and Cameroon followed. After some years, we changed from implementing our projects in many different countries to more long-term commitments in a few selected regions. This has been an important step towards developing ICP's vision and underlining its' idea. It brought continuity to the projects and helped to spread knowledge within the regions through local partnerships.
Since 2005, Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) is exclusively implementing all our projects, also supporting the setup of local networks.
Over the years, Joh. Johannson, Franck, and Delta Cafés successively joined ICP, making it a partnership spreading all over Europe.
In 2021, we were marking 20 years of continued support of smallholder coffee farming families. We are a strong pre-competitive partnership of leading family-owned European coffee companies. And we have proven that an innovative, holistic approach and cooperation within the coffee sector are crucial to tackle the challenges of smallholder farming families.
"We do not only implement projects. We focus on the families at the centre of our work, looking at their potentials and needs. Together with them and among the ICP shareholders we learn and evolve our approach and our operations. In the future, we will continue to embrace the power to work together. It’s like with coffee: Development and progress are the best when you share them with others."
We See People Prosper
Today, ICP is not a coffee-focused partnership anymore. Our work is about people. We implement projects on gender, youth, family businesses, farmer organizations, and climate change adaptation. The result is that we see smallholder coffee farming families become more competitive and entrepreneurial, produce more sustainably and that we see them prosper.
"Through ICP, we are trying to support smallholder coffee farmers to build a sustainable future for themselves. However, they are moving into a competitive environment. Entrepreneurship is the only way to go through. Entrepreneurship includes many elements: Finances, productivity, safe use of inputs, digitalization, and innovation. Working on these ingredients helps the smallholders change their mindsets. That is the main goal."
20 years ICP event “Focus on People! How the coffee sector can ensure smallholder families’ livelihoods”
Our webinar “Focus on People! How the coffee sector can ensure smallholder families’ livelihoods” celebrates ICP’s 20th anniversary and focuses on pressing issues smallholders are facing and the solutions ICP is developing with them. Kathrine Löfberg, Giuseppe Lavazza, Michael R. Neumann, Michael Opitz, Gunter Schall, and moderator Sara Morrocchi discuss possible actions of the coffee sector to tackle these issues - always with the goal to improve smallholder families’ livelihoods.