MINAS GERAIS, Brazil – Coffee production and processing generates significant volumes of organic waste with roughly 2.1 tons of husks per hectare alone. Enhancing recycling culture and creating a circular economy concept is a promising answer to tackle the issue. The project “Back to the Roots” in Minas Gerais, Brazil, which promoted such a circular economy approach and a waste-free coffee supply chain, just came successfully to an end.
It created a practical starting point to enable a comprehensive management and reuse of organic waste at scale in the future. The project was financed by German Investment Corporation (DEG), co-created and co-financed by Melitta Group and implemented by Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS).
Waste from coffee production and processing in Minas Gerais, Brazil, is often not properly and efficiently managed. It is discarded into the environment where it affects flora and fauna, pollutes water and soil, and becomes a source of greenhouse gas emissions.
“Before Back to the Roots started in 2020, most farmers in the project region, the Municipality of Santo Antônio do Amparo in Minas Gerais, did not manage their waste,” describes Silvia Torres, Melitta Project Coordinator of Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung do Brazil (HRNS). “However,” she adds, “over 90 percent of the farmers HRNS worked with showed interest in participating in a project that proposes better use for the waste they generate.”
The project assessed waste streams across the coffee value chain, from production to roasting, and sensitized farmers about waste management and nutrient cycles. Torres explains: “We documented existing management practices at all levels – from smallholder farmers, professional farms, farmer organizations and companies.” Operations included the Melitta factory in Varginha for piloting the reuse of organic waste from industrial processes.
Different types of waste such as coffee husks and manure served as inputs to generate organic compost, bokashi, an organic product of fermentation of waste with the help of effective microorganisms, or biochar.
The farmers brought these products to their coffee fields to improve the soil and the nutrient availability. Wastewater mixed with biochar or charcoal was used as a liquid fertilizer. Throughout the project, HRNS collaborated with the local Federal University of Lavras (UFLA) to analyse the compounds of the organic compost, bokashi, and biochar and the ideal application of each one.
Michael Opitz, Managing Director of HRNS acknowledges the results of the project: “We reached a good understanding of the processes. We also calculated examples and which nutrients can be returned to the field. It leaves us with a very good practical starting point for offering this to producers so that they can apply it in practice.”
Stefan Dierks, Director Sustainability Strategy at Melitta Group adds: “The results are encouraging for the short period of testing so far, and experience shows that the positive effects will continue to increase with longer-term implementation.”
In 2022, around 80 tons of compost were produced. Young farmers already showed interest in starting businesses selling organic fertilizers.
A local farmer organization, Association of Agricultural Families from Santo Antônio do Amparo (AFASACAFE), started to support a social business of producing compost and biochar, involving the local municipality. Furthermore, an international company is interested in taking husks from the farmers and producing biochar from it in a third-party business partnership.
As next steps, the circular economy approach should be scaled into widespread use in the region. Opitz concludes: “We achieved to work with many producers in an exemplary manner in this regard and carried out training sessions on the various methods. Now, the practices must be adopted into routine.”
“With ‘Back to the Roots’, Melitta aims to establish the concept of the circular economy throughout the entire coffee supply chain. Ideally, we will manage to significantly reduce the use of artificial fertilizers in coffee cultivation,” Dierks says.
For Melitta the project falls into a framework which aims to develop the coffee of the future. According to that concept, the coffee of the future is grown in a way which enables all people involved locally to live comfortably long-term and which preserves or regenerates the local ecological systems, is processed, transported, and roasted in a climate-friendly way which also uses water sustainably, has packaging which is recyclable and – whenever possible – reusable or made from recycled materials, is prepared in an energy-saving fashion and insofar as corresponding structures exist, the coffee grounds are recovered in the most environmentally compatible way (materials recovery, composting) in line with the principle of a circular economy.
About Melitta Group
Melitta is an internationally operating group of companies and is one of the leading independent family businesses, both in Germany and abroad. Its main activities are the development, manufacture and sale of branded products for coffee enjoyment, for the storage and preparation of food, and for household cleanliness. As a company with a tradition spanning more than 110 years, the Melitta Group thinks long term and sees the pursuit of sustainable development as an integral part of all its business activities.
Find out more here.
About HRNS
Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung (HRNS) is an independent foundation working with smallholder families in coffee regions and youth in Germany. We believe that only strong future generations around the globe can shape a livable world.
HRNS pursues three goals: (1) to improve the social and economic situation of smallholder families in tropical countries, (2) to protect the environment and nature, and (3) to promote the prospects of young people. The foundation realizes its goals as an implementer, co-financier and sponsor. HRNS was founded in 2005 by the family of Michael R. Neumann.
