First commercial shipment of Kafe Lespwa
November 28, 2008

Just Haiti is proud to announce the arrival in Baltimore of its first commercially shipped supplies of Kafe Lespwa coffee.

You can now place orders at the Just Haiti website. Roasted coffee will begin shipping in just a few days.

Buying Kafe Lespwa can help you meet your holiday shopping needs while helping build just and fair trade relationships between producers and consumers.

Subsistence farmers in the Baradères area of Haiti grew the coffee and harvested it in the wake of four deadly storms—two hurricanes and two tropical storms—that struck the entire country in August and September.

Baradères was not spared death, destruction, and loss of crops and livestock, but Kafe Lespwa ("Coffee of Hope") represents the farmers' own hopes for building a better future for their families, community and country.

The 868-pound shipment is tiny in comparison to the multi-ton shipments that occur every day around the globe. But it represents a giant business step forward for the growers' association, the Kafe Devlopman Barade (Coffee Development of Baradères).

Until now, supplies of Kafe Lespwa in bags of 50 pounds or less have traveled in the baggage of Just Haiti members flying back from Haiti. The new shipment was flown to the U.S. by a Haitian owned company based in Port-au-Prince. Now that we have successfully navigated the shipping process and all its legal procedures, we will be bringing coffee from Baradères on a consistent basis.

The growers' second step forward is an environmental one.

Starting with this shipment, Kafe Lespwa will use green packaging, switching from metalized plastic to compostable paper bags. To preserve freshness, the new bags have an inner film lining made with cornstarch instead of petroleum. Ink on the labels is made with vegetable oil instead of petro-oil.

Since the growers are trying to create an environmentally sustainable farming business, it makes sense for their packaging to support that goal.

After shipping, roasting, marketing and other expenses are subtracted, every penny of sales profit will be used to support the association's business operations and expansion.