LISBON, Portugal/HAMBURG, Germany — The non-profit partnership International Coffee Partners (ICP) has announced its new Chair today: Rui Miguel Nabeiro, CEO of Grupo Nabeiro/Delta Cafés, Portugal, takes over from Kathrine Löfberg, Chair of the Board at Löfbergs, Sweden. Under his lead, ICP plans to enhance its activities related to the megatrends of youth and climate change.
Rui Miguel Nabeiro is the new Chair of International Coffee Partners
Expanding cooperations will also be a key focus in the next years. ICP aims at improving smallholder coffee farmers’ livelihoods by making them more competitive based on sustainable practices.
It is a pre-competitive partnership of the leading family-owned European coffee companies, Delta Cafés, Franck, Paulig, Joh. Johannson, Löfbergs, Lavazza, Neumann Kaffee Gruppe, and Tchibo.
At the official handover event in Lisbon today, Kathrine Löfberg reflected on her seven years as Chair with their milestones and challenges: In 2021, for example, ICP celebrated its 20th anniversary.
“Our experience of 20 years ICP taught us to not look at coffee production in an isolated way but at the family farm as a whole”, she describes. “We take a holistic approach including youth, gender issues, off-farm activities, and nature.” Since its founding in 2001, ICP has already reached more than 110,000 smallholder families in 13 countries.
Kathrine Löfberg’s term of office also spanned the COVID-19 pandemic, witnessing challenges in food security, transportation, and availability of workforce and inputs in the projct regions.
“Although additional pressure was put on livelihood situations that were already vulnerable, we observed that families who participated in ICP projects were able to react to and mitigate challenges posed by the pandemic”, stated Kathrine Löfberg. Löfbergs is a coffee roaster owned by her family in the 4th generation, so coffee and sustainable coffee growing are her life.
“It was a pleasure to lead ICP as its Chair for so many years and of course, I will happily keep supporting ICP’s activities as part of the Steering Committee. I wish all the best to the new Chair Rui Miguel Nabeiro.”
In the next years, ICP plans to further develop its activities with a specific focus on youth and climate change. Rui Miguel Nabeiro is looking forward to overseeing these activities as ICP’s Chair together with the Steering Committee: “I am happy to support the progress of our joint work. Youth and climate change are very relevant megatrends in sustainability. We aim to enable youth to explore agriculture and coffee as pillars of their livelihood.”
With regard to climate change, ICP plans to further strengthen the initiative for coffee&climate (c&c) which was founded by the shareholders of ICP together with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in 2010.
Today, the initiative consists of several private company members and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency Sida as public partner. Kathrine Löfberg is the current Chair of c&c. Therefore, she and Rui Miguel Nabeiro will continue to work together closely on these common subjects.
Delta Cafés is a coffee roaster in the 3rd generation. The company joined ICP in 2018. All companies of ICP see the benefit in working together on a pre-competitive basis, joining forces for a sustainable coffee sector. Another goal for the coming years is therefore to expand ICP’s cooperations.
Rui Miguel Nabeiro: “ICP has a lot to offer when it comes to knowledge and experience on the ground. Cooperation with public and private actors helps us all to utilize synergies and address the challenges in the regions more efficiently.”
