Sustainability & Responsibility

SUSTAINABILITY
+ RESPONSIBILITY

Sustainability and corporate responsibility are at the heart of our mission. We strive to become a sustainable company that acts in a socially and environmentally responsible manner at all times. Discover highlights, challenges and goals with us. 

Discover highlights, challenges and goals with us. And maybe you can support us on this path.

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The highlights

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It’s personal

We know our partner farms personally and visit them regularly.
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We Care

We systematically minimise our CO2 footprint, for example with our energy-efficient Loring Kestrel.
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LOCALLY SOURCED

The milk we use for your flat white in Zurich is produced by cows from the organic farms Birkenhof in Uster and Marchmatt in Reigoldswil.
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We try out

Together with Oscar from Finca Los Nogales, we planted an organic field of Pink Bourbon coffee trees.

ViCAFE FAMILY

01

In 2020, we started our first ever internal Trainee Programme.

OUR ViCAFE FAMILY HAS GROWN STEADILY IN RECENT YEARS, AND OUR EMPLOYEES ARE JUST AS MUCH PART OF THE FAMILY AS THE EXTERNAL STAKEHOLDERS WITH WHOM WE COLLABORATE. THESE RELATIONSHIPS ARE BASED ON A SHARED SET OF VALUES, WHERE RESPECT, HONESTY AND TRANSPARENCY ARE KEY.

Q How do you celebrate diversity?

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From left to right: The two founders Christian Forrer & Kurt Lambert

ViCAFE shows its colours. A Queer & A: Voices from and for the LGBTQ+ community. For Pride Week 2020, we created a Queer & A: Voices from and for the community were invited to dispel some urban myths and prejudices.
Read full article

Long-term Collaboration
with our
Coffee Partners

02

Get involved

We welcome your questions about the different coffee farms.

We build personal relationships with our coffee suppliers. We don’t only get together to talk about coffee, but also about new developments on the farm and how we could sustainably support it.
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We collaborate with 9
coffee partners.

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50% of the farms are
family-owned.

Q How do you buy the
coffee?

We personally know the coffee farmers who produce our coffee, and regularly visit their farms in Guatemala, Colombia, Brazil, Honduras, Tanzania, Kenya, Ethiopia, India and Indonesia. It’s very important to us to build personal relationships with them, because it allows us to better understand the concerns and challenges of the coffee farmers and, in turn, more closely connect the product to the producer. We firmly believe that this has a positive effect on the coffee’s quality, and you can find a post on the topic in our blog.

Q Do you pay
fair prices?

ViCAFE pays prices that are above the average global coffee price. Above all, we pay stable prices so that farmers are less vulnerable to volatile price fluctuations. Thanks to our personal relationships with the coffee farmers, we know exactly how much money ends up on the farms.
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From left to right: ViCAFE General Manager Ramon Schalch & coffee farmer Oscar Hernandez

Energy
& Resources

03

Get involved

Support the effort and bring your own reusable cup.

Minimising our carbon footprint and using energy
efficiently is a daily challenge. WE HAVE ALREADY TAKEN THE FIRST STEPS AND LOOK FORWARD TO THE MANY CHALLENGES THAT AWAIT US IN THIS AREA.

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OUR ROASTING MACHINE, THE LORING KESTREL, USES UP TO 70% LESS ENERGY THAN CONVENTIONAL ROASTING MACHINES.

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Around 7% of our customers bring their own reusable cups to receive a 0.50 franc discount.

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SINCE 2021 WE ONLY USE 100% RECYCLABLE COFFEE BAGS.

Q Why do you use paper cups in the ViCAFE Espresso Bars?

We’re always looking for alternatives. Unfortunately, alternative systems are quite complex, both from an organisational and an ecological point of view (transport, cleaning). In the meantime, we recommend you bring your own reusable cup. Every time you stop by with a reusable cup, we will give you a discount of CHF 0.50.

Q Are your coffee bags recyclable?

Since summer 2021, we have been using a mono-material bag that is 100% recyclable. As a customer, you can bring your empty coffee bags to us in the espresso bars at all times and we will make sure that they end up in the cycle again.

HELPING TO GROW MORE SUSTAINABLE FARMING

04

Get involved

Visit the Birkenhof-Farm in Uster, Zurich with us.

REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE IS A BACKBONE OF OUR COMPANY. TOGETHER WITH OUR PRODUCERS, WE ARE WORKING ON FUTURE-ORIENTED, RESOURCE-CONSERVING PROJECTS IN FOOD PRODUCTION. AT THE SAME TIME, WE WANT TO PASS ON TO OUR CUSTOMERS THE IMPORTANCE OF REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE FOR THE PRESERVATION OF OUR HABITATS.

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Our dairy farm: Birkenhof

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20% of our coffee farmers are certified organic.

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100% of our WHOLE milk is certified organic.

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Every fourth Flat White is created from plant milk.

Q Is your coffee
produced sustainably?

We deliberately avoid conventional certificates such as Rainforest Alliance (RFA), Fair Trade or UTZ. The personal, trusting relationship with the producers is in the foreground. In addition, the coffee must meet our quality standards and be grown in a socio-ecologically regenerative system. Only when everything is in place, we buy coffee from a farm. You can find more detailed information in our blog.

Q Is your coffee
certified organic?

ViCAFE has been certified organic since 2018. At the moment, we sell two coffees with the organic label: Miju from Ethiopia and the coffee from the Aprolma Women’s Cooperative in Honduras. In order to keep costs low for the farmers, we do not use an organic label for our Orangutan coffee from Indonesia, even though the coffee is grown according to the strict Indonesian organic guidelines.

You might also like to read

ViCAFE Miju

REUNION WITH MIJU

First, a word about the name: Miju is the middle name of Alemayehu Daniel’s father, Daniel, who inherited the name of his grandfather Miju. And Miju is, above all, a terrific coffee with an equally exciting story. This coffee comes from twelve small farms. Farms, which in turn belong to twelve siblings. These are the sisters and brothers of Alemayehu, the elder.

ViCafe_Blog_SinanCarlotta

VISITING CARLOTTA AND SINAN IN BASEL

We regularly portray people here who are important to ViCAFE. Today we visited our barista’s Carlotta and Sinan with their new canine family member Kai in their old apartment in Basel.