Nespresso uses Clooney to sell sustainable coffee

First to
sell coffee from South Soudan

“We always
need more coffee, especially sustainable coffee”, said CEO of Nespresso
Jean-Marc Duvoisin. “This is why we want to expand our AAA sustainability
programme by including more companies and individual coffee farmers from Ethiopia
and Kenya.”

The coffee
brand also wants to jumpstart coffee farming in South Soudan. Nestlé wants to
double the amount of coffee from that region by 2020, bringing it to 10,000
tons. Nespresso also wants to be the first brand to bring coffee from that
region onto the international market, since the independence of the country.

Sustainability
and Clooney to lure back customers

Currently Nespresso gets 80% of its coffee from its sustainability programme, which
includes 56,000 farmers from Columbia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico and
recently also India. As a part of the programme Nestlé pays farmers 30% to 40%
more for their coffee than is standard on the global market. The programme also
involves several social projects for the coffee farmers.

To promote
the sustainability project for the African coffee farmers, Nestlé wants to use
actor George Clooney for an advertising campaign. Clooney has been the face of
Nespresso since 2006, so this news comes as no surprise.

This new
project also has to give sales a push. The past few years the growth of Nespresso
has been somewhat stunted: an increase of 20% or more is a thing of the past,
now more and more competitors are launching cheaper capsules. Mondelez, the
number two worldwide, is launching its range of capsules later this year and
they will be compatible with the coffeemakers of Nespresso.