By James Watts, Weaver Street Market Head Merchandiser
The Joe Van Gogh Café Femenino line has been a coffee favorite at Weaver Street Market for many years. Now the product has been repackaged to emphasize that the coffee beans come from women farmers who are paid directly for their crops!
About Café Femenino
Women in developing countries often do not keep control of the resources generated by their work. They often do not have access to capital or markets.
One of our local coffee roasters, JoeVan Gogh, started the Café Femenino line to help. Coffee beans are sourced from female coffee farmers, giving them their own income, paid only to them. The Café Femenino project has additional goals of creating an equal distribution of labor, requiring women to be listed on land deeds, and including women in leadership and decision-making.
A New Look
The good people at the Joe Van Gogh coffee company were rightfully proud of their work to create an ethical sourcing platform that ensured that women get their fair share, which directly improves the quality of life for their families in developing regions. But, they saw that they could make a greater impact by removing the Joe Van Gogh brand and rebranding as Café Femenino Coffee. These organic and fair-trade-certified coffees are now packaged as a freestanding brand that is still produced by the expert roasters at Joe Van Gogh and delivered fresh to our stores.
The rebranding effort also included expanding the product line-up: coffees from Sumatra, Mexico, and Guatemala join the original Femenino Blend and Femenino Peru. An espresso blend was also added, so now the Café Femenino brand offers coffees that are appropriate for every caffeination need! You can see the newly packaged product in the picture. Look for it on the shelves in all of our stores.