Coffee with conscience rises from adversity

BEN WATSON/North Shore Times

CONSCIENCE COFFEE: Cherie West's venture enables her to do business while making life better for impoverished communities in Papua New Guinea.

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Tragedy has not diminished Cherie West’s passion for helping to make a difference for people in Third World countries.

Rising from her husband’s tragic death in a plane crash three years ago, the Mairangi Bay mum is making a new life for herself by venturing into what she calls a "coffee business with a conscience".

She imports coffee from Papua New Guinea and donates 10 percent of sales to development projects for the coffee growers.

The rest is a fundraiser for Mission Aviation Fellowship an organisation providing aerial transport for otherwise inaccessible communities that she and her husband Richard worked with in Papua New Guinea.

Mr West died in Papua New Guinea in February 2005 when the twin engine plane he was flying with fellow New Zealander Chris Hansen crashed in bad weather while working for the Mission Aviation Fellowship.

Since the business started some 18 months ago, Mrs West says the proceeds have been able to fund radio equipment for the coffee-growing village of Boiko.

"In a country where phone links are few and far between, the high-frequency radio is still the standard means of communication for remote villages," she says.

"The radio system that we’ve bought has made a big difference. Since its purchase about a year ago, there have been 11 medical evacuations performed, including one for a pregnant woman," she says.

She says another purchase is being planned for another village, where she buys the organically-grown, 100 percent Arabica coffee beans.

The idea came when she and her husband were working in Goroka.

"Richard was upset one year to learn that some farmers didn’t even bother to pick the beans because it cost them more to transport it than what they could sell it for."

Her husband lobbied to get the Coffee Industry Corporation in New Guinea to give subsidies to these farmers.

Mrs West says she thought of her concept as a viable way of doing business while making life easier for the coffee growers.

"By returning 10 percent of sales back to the growers in the form of development projects, we have a very high social responsibility rating, hence the tag line ‘coffee with conscience’," she says.

She named her company LatitudeSix Coffee after the area in New Guinea located at six degrees below the equator where the coffee is grown.

She says there has been a lot of very positive feedback about the coffee.

- © Fairfax NZ News