Orang Utan Coffee Wins Top Awards at Supply Chain Excellence Awards with innovative approach to sustainability
Frannie Santos-Mawdsley, Senior Marketing Maanager at UCC UK & I with host Shaun Williamson
Drink coffee. Save orangutans. Winner in the Food and Drink category of the prestigious Supply Chain Excellence Awards – in their special 25th Year edition – and overall winner ,taking home “Team of the Year” with their Farmer Connect blockchain technology, Orang Utan Coffee, in partnership with Farmer Connect, are leading the way for the future of supply chain in the sector.
After being awarded the prestigious innovation award at the Lunch! and Casual Dining show earlier this year for their UCC TO GO™ premium automated retail, the most customisable coffee to‐go machine on the market, UCC Coffee have repeated their success with the Orang Utan Coffee brand and snatched both the Food and Drink and top prize of “Team of the Year” at the Supply Chain Excellence awards.
Frannie Santos-Mawdsley, Senior Marketing Manager Northern Europe who collected the awards states “It was an honour to represent UCC & our partners, Farmer Connect, at the Supply Chain Excellence Awards 25th Anniversary. Our teams worked very closely, and, at launch stage, we were also joined by Waitrose & Partners, who were ever so supportive of the project. It’s been a hugely collaborative and cross-functional and cross-business team effort, hence, winning the coveted “Team of the Year” was unexpected, but it reinforces our focus on CSR and innovation through different areas of the business. Having just won an innovation award at lunch! for our UCC TO GO™, it’s very rewarding for our team to see our hard work during the very difficult months we have all experienced being recognized.”
Part of the global Ueshima Coffee Company, UCC Coffee UK & I have, for many years, created and managed coffee experiences for the most dynamic businesses in foodservice, hospitality and retail. With in‐house market‐leading insight and a global network, its Total Coffee Solution is tailored around the customers’ needs and goals, working in partnership to ensure their coffee offer grows faster and outperforms the market.
As the UCC TO GO™ unit demonstrates, innovation and a forward future‐thinking approach to coffee is at the heart of the UCC agenda. As part of their portfolio, they manage white‐ labelled coffee brands for some of the UK’s biggest high‐street names in both Retail and Foodservice, alongside their own range of certified and sustainable‐first coffees, including Grand Café in partnership with conservation international, ThreeSixty, which includes Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade blends, and Orang Utan.
The UK’s FIRST Blockchain Coffee
Working with the farmer connect© platform, UCC Coffee UK & I with Orang Utan Coffee are the UK’s first blockchain coffee brand, helping to protect farming communities, rainforests, and orangutan populations in Indonesia with technology designed to to help increase transparency, credibility and fairness across the entire coffee supply chain.
Blockchain, a type of database which records transactions in separate, unchangeable, time‐ stamped, cryptograph‐coded unique “blocks” linked to each other in a permanent “chain” provides accessible, understandable, and validated data that is uploaded at every stage of the Orang Utan Coffee journey ‐ from the highlands of Sumatra until it reaches the coffee shelves of retailers, such as Waitrose and Ocado, in the UK.
This means Farmer Connect and UCC can guarantee complete transparency in the supply chain from bean‐to‐cup and can ensure farmers are being paid a fair wage for their vital work. In addition, a portion of these sales are donated to the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP) and other charities to directly improve the lives of the communities involved.
Direct to the Farmers
As part of their ongoing commitment to reduce our impact on the environment, the Orang Utan brand has been supported by Waitrose & Partners and the coffee is available in‐store or online for their customers to make empowered choices and opt for a coffee brand now recognised and awarded for their commitment to supply chain innovation.
All of this means customers can do their own little bit to support the farmers, communities and environments that went into sourcing the coffee, with the guarantee records haven’t been corrupted in the process.
Customers can also donate further money direct to the farmers through the Farmer Connect© platform, knowing with confidence the money will reach them and not be siphoned on the way.
In foodservice, the brand is hugely popular in education and listed in universities, colleges, and independent schools where students, who are increasingly ethically engaged, appreciate the direct and conscious message.
Also ideal for garden centres and leisure locations, Orang Utan gives customers the chance to protect the livelihoods of farmers and preserve fragile rainforest environments home to millions of species.
Now recognised by the Supply Chain Excellence Awards, the brand’s support to SOCP has helped in other successes which include:
- The safe rehabilitation of over 200 orangutans
- The cancellation of major palm oil concessions
- The closure of a major timber concession and established protected status for 88,000 hectares in the Batang Toru Ecosystem ‐ currently home to 800 Tapanuli orangutans
- Helping the SOCP build The Orangutan Haven in North Sumatra ‐ a safe home for orangutans that are too injured to return to the wild
- Certifying all Orang Utan Coffee farmers in the highlands of Gayo to follow rigorous Orang Utan Coffee standards
- Assisting coffee farmers to build their own processing plant
- Ongoing training and education to coffee farmers on ecologically viable farming to help protect the natural habitat of orangutans.
Orang Utan is available in-store or online via Waitrose & Partners or online via Ocado.
For more information on UCC and its award-winning products, please visit www.ucc-coffee.co.uk
UCC Coffee
UCC Coffee are proud to offer the market leading Total Coffee Solution model. We roast a full range of coffees from our own portfolio of award-winning brands to private label offers In foodservice, our world-class commercial espresso machines deliver consistent, quality coffee, and by working exclusively with the world’s most innovative manufacturers and brands, our customers always stay ahead of their competitors. Our data-driven approach to coffee excellence guarantees that their teams have the skills to produce quality coffee across every site, whatever scale. Our technical customer support and service engineers’ knowledge base are always available, wherever, and whenever. Our expert teams become a part of our customers’ business, providing preventative and reactive cover all-year round, so their coffee keeps on flowing.
Insight and branding, coffee, equipment, data-driven training, smart service, category management all play a part in making the experience truly exceptional for customers and end consumers. We make every cup count.
With UCC, foodservice outlets can switch on a solution that’s entirely powered by unrivalled expertise, experience, service, and data. Our vast network and scalable solutions are proven to drive double digit growth, at a faster rate than the market.