We were first introduced to husband and wife team Chris Rugira and Divine Mutuyimana (founders of Tropic Coffee) when visiting Rwanda in 2018 as a member of the international tasting jury for that year’s Cup of Excellence competition.

The founder of Vava Coffees Kenya, her vision for coffee comes from an inborn Kenyan perspective on the industry which drives her to challenge the neo-colonialist systems still in place which have created unbalanced power dynamics between producer and buyer.

A non-profit organisation, Raw Material was founded to ensure specialty coffee meets its potential in becoming a solution to the issues facing our industry, not a further contributor to the cycle of debt and disadvantage that many producers have faced over generations.

Established in 2000, Caravela was founded with a simple purpose: to make coffee better, for everyone involved. The team source Latin American coffees from small-scale producers in often ‘hard to reach’ regions and bring those coffees to the international market to seek out responsibly minded roasters who are looking to forge supply partnerships more closely with those growers

North Star co-founder Hols started her coffee career working for the Specialty Coffee team for Falcon. Falcon continue to play a crucial role in North Star’s sourcing approach, assisting with the logistics and financing of our coffees bought from Vava, Tropic and Bertu Coffee. 

Bertu seek to: establish strong buyer relationships, budget and maintain a predictable cost structure with producers who have control and understanding of their costs of production, achieve operational excellence and work towards a zero carbon footprint from farm to port through mixing traditional forestry practices with newer regenerative farming principles.