STiR coffee and tea magazine

Volume 5, Number 1

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STiR tea & coffee industry international 45 ZAMBIA ZIMBABWE MOZAMBIQUE Indian Ocean Dake Malawi TANZANIA MALAWI Blantyre Lilongwe more of their high end, specialty teas that are then sold direct to customers around the world. Satemwa pays a premium for the high quality green leaf and the smallholders share the profits. The longer-term aim is to train the smallholders to make their own teas, white to begin with, and then to sell them through Satemwa's network. Satemwa has recently established an office in Belgium, under the direction of Wouter Verelst, in order to more readily supply specialty tea rooms and stores in Europe and the USA. The challenges Although both Satemwa and The Msuwadzi Association are Fair Trade certified, they are both highly dependent on a small num- ber of customers who are prepared to pay the extra premium. Some customers who previously purchased Fair Trade products have recently, for no apparent reason, stopped doing so and this has reduced the amount of money available for audits, certifica- tion and projects. The price received for the bulk of the teas is dependent on world prices, and investing in the more costly production of the specialty hand-made teas is a risk, especially since markets and demand are unpredictable and Malawi, as a land-locked country, find it hard to sell its teas outside the local markets. Direct trade between producer and retailer is the most desirable route since it guarantees traceability and transparency and builds a valuable relationship between those who make and those who sell and this is Satemwa's preferred way of working. In 2015, Satemwa and Msuwadzi established three main goals that will drive their work in coming years. In 1935, Mclean Kay was the first tea grower in Malawi to employ women work- ers, and gender equality is high on the list of priorities. Women work alongside men in all parts of the estate, and some facilities (for example, the water cleaning facility and the specialty tea de- partment) are operated solely by females. The second goal is to manage climate change and work towards a sustainable environ- ment. Natural areas and forests in Malawi have been decreasing over the past 20 years, mainly because of a rapid increase in population, and this has led to a loss of habitat for a number of indigenous animals and birds. Satemwa has increased its natural areas in order to maintain an ecological balance by cultivating a wide range of trees, shrubs, and flowers, by protecting natural corridors where native animals can live and move around freely, and by looking after clean flowing rivers and streams. The third goal is to sign up for the UN Global Compact and establish direct trade partnerships that will help make Satemwa and the Msuwadzi brand more visible. Traceability is a major concern at Satemwa and in each field on the estate, a stone is inscribed with the origin of the tea plants, the area of the field in hectares, and the year the tea was planted. When the bushes are plucked, supervisors keep track of the batch number of the tea harvested from a particular field, and each batch is monitored throughout the entire pro- duction process. Tasters approve each batch and then the teas are packed and marked with a unique code so that customers know every detail of each tea. More and more retailers today want to know as much as possible about the teas they sell, and Satemwa's collaboration with the Msuwadzi Small Holder Tea Growers Association makes an impressive story. Learn more from Wouter Verelst at wouter@satemwa.com Malawi, home to 16 million, became independent in 1964. Pupils attending the Satemwa tea estate school.

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