GCP welcomes Walter Matter to the membership community! In this Meeting Members feature, GCP learns more about the company’s sustainability goals and we find out how the new member is working with and through GCP to achieve these.
Walter Matter is a family-owned green coffee and cocoa merchant, established in 1920 and is based in Geneva, Switzerland, with four offices in Vietnam, USA, Ethiopia, and Brazil, to stay close to the field and above all close to people. Sustainability has always been deeply integrated into our DNA.
We offer a rich variety of certified and sustainable beans, thanks to our sourcing specialists who have built longstanding partnerships with smallholders’ coffee cooperatives and local exporters. Our sister company CaféMa, established almost 55 years ago, is exclusively dedicated to high quality certified coffee that ensures farmer’s living income. It represents above 5% of Fairtrade coffee traded worldwide.
The way we act has always been guided by our core values:
- Responsibility: we act with integrity towards our producers and customers.
- Long-term commitment: our partnerships are based on mutual trust.
- Agility: adaptability and flexibility are our answer to producers’ and customers’ expectations.
- Shared success: success is the result of the collective effort, the one achieved by all our partners.
Launched in 2021, our Responsible Business Policy is the cornerstone of our sustainability approach. It rests on three pillars:
1. Partnering for success: for over a century we have built strong relationships with cooperatives and local exporters, multinational roasters and local coffee shops, and specialized associations such as GCP, to contribute to sector-wide sustainability efforts.
2. Sourcing for shared value: we embed social and environmental purpose in the way we source, while improving traceability and transparency through clear & clean documentation, data collection at farm level, and risk identification and remediation.
3. Acting for impact: with act at origin to promote best practices and strengthen local capacities, with the support of our project partners. Our portfolio tackles a diversity of social and environmental challenges, including agroforestry, reforestation, women and youth empowerment or income diversification, among others.
By joining GCP, we perpetuate our historical approach and progress on the collective path towards fair and sustainable coffee for all.
“At Walter Matter, we focus our effort at origin, as close as possible to the field, to strengthen our partners’ environmental and social performance. Together, we contribute to ensure responsible practices from the farm to the consumer.“
Nicolas MATTER, Walter Matter’s CEO
This contribution forms part of a series called Meeting Members.
The words and images have been provided by Walter Matter.
