Working closely with coffee farmers and workers is part of the Ethics and Community Aid programmes implemented by Rogers Estate Coffees across all the farms they own and work with in Central America.

Community Aid programmes see that coffee farmers and workers are treated fairly and have a safe environment in which to work. This involves paying coffee farmers and workers a payment they deserve which covers the cost of the production, infrastructure, maintenance as well as the need for a reasonable profit.

Please check out our videos on our Facebook page which showcase Pete Rogers’ trips to meet and work with coffee farmers:

Coffee Farmers Part 1: http://bit.ly/ctUmUI

Coffee Farmers Part 2: http://bit.ly/9RJXbt

During July and August Rogers Estate Coffees has teamed up with like minded businesses, to further promote their organic coffee range and introduce their coffees to new customers.

To receive a free sachet of organic coffee and a 15% discount off your first purchase from Rogers Estate Coffees simply visit one of their partner’s websites* and make a purchase. Your purchase will then be dispatched with your free coffee gift. The summer promotion will run until the end of August and more details can be found here.

Trading as an online store, Rogers Estate Coffees has a diverse product portfolio of gourmet, organic and flavoured coffees all produced to the highest ethical standards that exceed well known organisations such as Fairtrade.

Customers can easily order their favourite coffees online and have it delivered straight to their door whilst contributing to the important community projects carried out by Rogers Estate Coffees; helping them turn previous poor coffee farms into flourishing coffee communities.

For tips on how to make the perfect cup of coffee visit: http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk/perfectbrew

For full details about the offer and to find out about the partners visit: http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk/index.php?id=151

*Information about partners:

Salamander Cookshop

Salamander Cookshop is home to the best cookware, bakeware and kitchenware. As one of Britain’s leading cookware retailers since 1993, its philosophy is to bring together the best kitchen equipment, utensils and accessories from around the world. Salamander specialises in higher end cookware products, often recommended by professional chefs and trusted food writers.

Real Food Direct

Real Food Direct - is an online specialist food retailer. Through just one web site customers can access a wide range of high quality food products and have them delivered to their door. Products generally come from a wide range of UK specialist producers and the vast majority are either organic or entirely free of preservatives, additives or artificial flavouring.

Lulubelles Cakes

Lulubelle’s of Dorset is home to some of the tastiest cupcakes in the South. The small bespoke cupcake company is run by Louisa Harman who turned her hobby into a business. Lulubelle’s offers a delicious selection of cupcakes from regular flavours such as chocolate and vanilla through to some really special dessert combinations.

Kate’s Cupcakes

Kate’s Cupcakes is a bespoke cupcake company based in Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire producing made to order Cupcakes, biscuits and large cakes for a variety of customers. Kate’s Cupcakes uses organic and fair-trade ingredients as well as locally sourced eggs where possible.

The Chai Stop

Chai Stop, bringing you award winning Indian and Thai curries. Tasty authentic recipes made using the finest gourmet ingredients which are all locally sourced and grown where possible. With a nationwide delivery capacity the curries are delivered frozen throughout the UK, cleverly packaged in eco friendly sheep’s wool insulation to ensure freshness.

IKove

Acai Chocolate personal care - An all-natural, Brazilian beauty range that uses fair-trade and organic ingredients where possible - it also smells of chocolate - genius! Free from parabens, mineral oil, SLSs and animal ingredients, IKOVE is based on traditional herbalism, healing and rejuvenation remedies.

Yin Yang Skincare

Yin Yang is a range of 100% natural, organic where possible, British skincare. It was founded in 1973 by Katie May, and has just been re-launched in the UK. Yin Yang works with the skin’s own systems of renewal and defence, appealing to the chemical conscious and chemically sensitive consumer.

Forget people saying that coffee is bad for you; the latest research revealed today puts your daily cup (or 4!) on a pedestal - saying that coffee intake in moderation can fight cancers of the mouth and promote healthy hearts.

• Coffee lovers are 39 percent less likely to suffer from cancers of the mouth and larynx according to the latest research which used information gleaned from nine studies from Europe, America and Central America which compared the coffee drinking habits of over 5000 cancer patients and more than 9000 healthy people. Read more here:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1288213/Four-coffees-day-mouth-cancer-bay.html
  

• Drinking coffee can also cut heart disease risk. The study by Dutch scientists discovered that those who drank between two and four cups of coffee a day had 20 per cent lower risk of a heart disease. Read more here on BBC news http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/10350373.stm

Visit our online shop now to stock up on your favourite coffee.

Don’t forget our 12 for 8 offer on wholesale coffee and free delivery on all orders over £25.

Arm yourself with a cafetiere or filter coffee machine, some fresh ground coffee, a cup and  don’t forget some milk, cream or sugar to taste.

Follow our easy guide to making the perfect brew and you will be a coffee master in no time!

1. Use one to two rounded tablespoons per serving, and adjust to taste. 2. Pour a little cold water onto the coffee. This will make it swell up and release even more of its delicious flavour. 3. Empty your kettle and fill it with plenty of fresh water. Coffee is 98% water; so if your tap water isn’t very nice then use filtered or bottled water. 4. Boil the kettle and then wait for the water to stop bubbling before pouring. 5. Pour just enough water for the number of cups you are making. 6. Give it a quick stir and wait for about four minutes. 7. Gently press the filter down. If you feel resistance just back off for a few seconds and then gently press down again. 8. Pour the coffee and serve with milk or cream and brown sugar to taste. 1. Put a clean filter into the filter funnel of your coffee machine. 2. Spoon one to two rounded tablespoons of ground coffee into the filter funnel for each serving. If you prefer stronger or milder coffee then adjust to taste. 3. Pour a little cold water onto the coffee. This will make it swell up and release even more of its delicious flavour. 4. Fill the machine with just enough fresh water. Coffee is 98% water; so if your tap water isn’t very nice then use filtered or bottled water. 5. If you are only making a few cups and your machine has a setting for this then make sure you have selected it. 6. Leave the machine for about ten minutes while the coffee brews. 7. Pour the coffee and serve with milk or cream and brown sugar to taste. 8. Don’t wait too long for a second cup, your coffee will turn bitter after about 30 minutes.

Recent news reports state that over 20 Million Brits pop out to a coffee shop for their daily coffee fix each week, with cappuccino or an espresso being popular choices (The Sun, 2010). 2010 statistics from consumer Intelligence Company Mintel indicate that the coffee market has grown in value by 17% since 2005 with consumers preferring to purchase premium coffee brands over the cheaper jars of instant coffee.

The trend for ethical coffee is also becoming stronger as more consumers are now aware of the social and environmental impacts of the coffee they purchase.

This is good news for coffee retailers, who can maximise on this trend by purchasing the right kind of wholesale coffee for their educated and discriminating customers. Today’s coffee consumer demands premium, ethical, high quality coffee. Price is no longer a key determining issue in choice.

Rogers Estate Coffees, the UK supplier of gourmet coffee sells the kind of coffee UK consumers are demanding. To help meet this demand, Rogers Estate Coffees is offering customers 12 bags for the price of 8 on wholesale coffee.

Coffee lovers can buy a 12 pack of Columbian Supremo, French Roast, or Gourmet Blend and only pay for 8 – saving a massive £47 pounds.

Retailers can feel good about switching to the Rogers Estate Coffees’ Fairly Traded coffees because every purchase supports its groundbreaking “Coffee Community Aid” program which ensures that a share of the profits from sales go directly to the coffee growing communities to improve the quality of life for workers and their families and protect nature.

“Our ‘12 for 8′ wholesale promotion is tailored for a wide range of business owners and managers – such as hoteliers, restaurateurs, office managers or caterers – who need wholesale gourmet coffee at a great price,” adds Rogers Estate Coffees Vice President Jim Rogers.

“By switching to our Fairly Traded coffee, businesses, their customers and employees can feel good knowing the coffee they are drinking is helping the people who produce it and protecting nature in the coffee growing communities throughout the world.”

To take advantage of the 12 for 8 wholesale offer visit: http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk/shop/Buy-Premium-Coffee-Online/Wholesale-Coffee

There is an array of labels out there– each pledging to the consumer that their coffee is socially and environmentally responsible.

But how can you differentiate between fact and fiction? What do these labels actually mean for the farmers, workers and their families and the natural environment in these coffee growing regions?

Rogers Estate Coffees, the UK producer of gourmet coffee, has adopted its own standard: “Fairly Traded.” This program exceeds the goals of some labelling organisations such as Fair Trade and ensures that the workers who produce your coffee beans are given the payment they deserve. This is done through setting up long term contracts with single estate famers, which enable these coffee famers to treat their employees fairly, improve local ecosystems and make a decent profit.

Did you know that your coffee choice has a global impact?

Coffee affects an estimated half a billion people around the globe, from pickers to roasters to retailers. The low prices in the coffee market actually mean that coffee farmers are under great pressure and financial stress. Many must sell their coffee beans way below their cost of production in a desperate attempt to make a living. This leaves them greatly in debt and facilitates the increasing levels of poverty in the coffee growing regions of Central and South America. Worse still, the situation puts pressure on famers to implement bad farming practices (such as the growing of illegal crops, poor maintenance of land and even abandoning and selling their farms) in an outcry to make money to support their families.

What are the Differences (and similarities) between Fairly Traded, Community Aid and Fair Trade?

Rogers Estate Coffees’ Community Aid /Fairly Traded coffee and Fair Trade both strive to help break the cycle of poverty in coffee-growing lands. Both programs promote long-term fixed contracts and direct imports from farmers to bypass middlemen.

However, not all coffee farms are small enough to be organized into cooperatives (a prerequisite for farmers participating in Fair Trade). Many large coffee farms with which Rogers Estate Coffees does business often hire the local, indigenous population to work on their farms. So, when importing coffee from a farm that is not small (and therefore not a member of a Fair Trade cooperative), it is impossible to get Fair Trade certificate for the coffee. But poverty is still a problem for the local community and the workers on the large farms.

The ‘Coffee Community Aid program’ extends Rogers Estate Coffees Fairly Traded promise and fills this void that cannot be addressed by Fair Trade. In a vow to tackle the appalling poverty in coffee farms, Community Aid turns “Fairly Traded” coffee into houses, schools and medical clinics for thousands of workers and their families - while preserving native plants and animals and restoring rainforest. This year, Rogers will invest $US 1 million in their Coffee Community Aid programme. Unlike other programs, the Rogers Family Co. ensures that all Community Aid funds go only to farmers, workers and their families for social or environmental projects that help break the cycle of poverty and improve the quality of life for the workers and their families.

From 2001 to 2007, 18 schools, 125 bathrooms, 119 housing units, 12 clinics, and 52 kitchens were constructed in communities in Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Rwanda, New Guinea, Sumatra, Ethiopia and Columbia via the Community Aid program.

Notes to editor:

Rogers Estate Coffees actually pay more for their coffee than Fair Trade – up to $1.40 per pound; (in some instances much more) which is substantially more than the average market price – thereby exceeding labelling organisations’ standards – to ensure a farm’s long-term viability.

Each year, Pete Rogers visits dozens of coffee farms – from Mexico to Rwanda - not only to ensure a source of the world’s finest Arabica coffee beans but also to see firsthand that the Rogers’ partner farms are meeting Roger’s standards for socially and environmentally responsible coffee production. He tours all of its partner farms as part of a 20-plus year commitment to permanently improve the quality of life for thousands of coffee farm workers and protect nature in the world’s premier coffee growing regions.

You may be wondering how Pete communicates with the coffee farmers? He is fluent in Spanish and culturally sensitive to the workers in the South American regions, enabling him to have a close working relationship with the Roger’s coffee famers and their workers.

Pete helped launch the Rogers Estate Coffees “Community Aid” program in 1986 when he vowed to address the “appalling” poverty he witnessed on his first trip to Guatemala to source coffee beans.

From its first small project – supplying pencils and paper to a struggling school – Community Aid now turns the company’s Fairly Traded coffee into houses, schools, medical clinics and food while focusing on education to break the cycle of poverty at farms in over 10 countries. Once described by a reporter as a “mini-Peace Corps,” a Community Aid program starts with paying farmers enough to ensure they meet the cost of production and then its contribution to the farm goes up.

Community Aid has completed hundreds of social and environmental projects, including modern houses as well as medical facilities, schools and day care centers for thousands of coffee farm workers and their families.

Community Aid also provides permanent educational programs and scholarships, doctors, nurses, teachers, food and clothing, clean drinking water and energy systems and also protects native plants and animals including endangered species.

To read more about the community aid programs take a look at the case studies here: http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk/index.php?id=82

The newly added San Francisco Bay products are:

• Columbian Supremo ground coffee - which is a world renowned, full bodied coffee with an almost sweet taste . The second addition for those who prefer decaf is a decaffeinated version!

• Espresso Roast ground coffee – which is a very rich full bodied coffee that is perfect for regular coffee or an espresso – a perfect choice for coffee lovers!

The San Francisco Bay range of premium gourmet coffees reflects the birthplace of Rogers Family Company. The Rogers family have been experts in growing, harvesting and roasting coffees for over 30 years. The San Francisco Bay coffees are top quality, environmentally and socially responsible and are your bridge to the world of outstanding coffee.

Every purchase of Fairly Traded coffee from Rogers Estate Coffees supports the companies’ unique “Coffee Community Aid” program. Community Aid continuously raises the quality of life for thousands of farmers and workers while preserving or restoring the environment in coffee growing regions.

To purchase the new coffee flavors or to benefit from the free delivery visit the online shop: http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk/shop/Buy-Premium-Coffee-Online

About Rogers Estate Coffees
Rogers Estate Coffees is a UK subsidiary of Rogers Family Coffee Co., one of the largest family owned coffee roasters in the USA. The company prides itself on its Community Aid projects and the premium quality of its coffees. Their green coffee beans come from coffee estates and farms as well as from their own farms in Panama. Visit http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk to find out more.

For those of you who love coffee and pancakes alike, Rogers Estate Coffees, the leading supplier of gourmet coffee, has put together a nice adaptation of a Tiramisu Pancake Recipe.

Simply add a teaspoon of one of their flavoured roasted ground coffees to the Tiramisu Pancake recipe below and enjoy.

The Cafe Flavours range is made up of:

• Belgian Coffee
• Chocolate Raspberry
• Irish Cream
• Wild Hazelnut

Tiramisu Pancake Recipe (serves 4)

Ingredients

• 1 packet frozen pancakes
• 4oz cream cheese
• 4oz Mascarpone cheese
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 1 teaspoon of your chosen flavour of Rogers Estate Coffees ground coffee
• 1 tablespoon water

1. Warm the pancakes according to the directions on the package
2. Beat the cream cheese, mascarpone cheese and sugar in a large bowl until combined. Dissolve the coffee in small amount of warm water and add to the cheese mixture and mix well.
3. Place a pancake onto a plate and dollop with the cheese mixture; repeat the layers two more times, ending with a dollop of cheese mixture topping each stack. Sprinkle with cocoa if desired and serve immediately.

About Pancake Day

Pancake Day is always celebrated on a Tuesday and is also known as Shrove Tuesday. Pancake Day celebrates the start of the Christian celebration of Lent.

To order flavoured ground coffee visit the online shop: http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk/shop/Buy-Premium-Coffee-Online

About Rogers Estate Coffees

Rogers Estate Coffees is a UK subsidiary of Rogers Family Coffee Co., one of the largest family owned coffee roasters in the USA. The company prides itself on its Community Aid projects and the premium quality of its coffees. Their green coffee beans come from small coffee estates and farms as well as from their own farms in Panama. The Rogers Estate Coffees product range also includes wholesale coffee perfect for hotels, bars, cafes and restaurants.

Visit http://www.rogersestatecoffees.co.uk to find out more.

In Colombia, this year’s harvest was the worst since 1974, due to bad weather, and was the third straight off-year. The ICO predicts that the coffee for the next crop year, beginning September 30, could fall well short of the 9.5 million bags predicted.

Bloomberg news reported that the price of coffee has already increased in New York and there are speculations of a similar effect to the global coffee market. “Premiums are bound to increase,” ICO Executive Director Nestor Osorio told Bloomberg on Friday.

Rogers Estate Coffees the UK subsidiary of the family-owned Rogers Family Company pledged that there will not be any reduction in its ‘Community Aid’ program which ensures that coffee farmers are always treated fairly, paid enough to make a reasonable profit and works with them to protect native plants, rainforest and wildlife. The Rogers Family Co. supplies its “Fairly Traded” gourmet coffee products to discriminating customers worldwide.

Jon Rogers, President of The Rogers Family Company, said,  “Regardless of any rise in coffee prices, which may come into effect in the future, we will continue to uphold our values of being fairly traded and pay our coffee farmers and workers the amount they deserve”.

The Fairly Traded and Community Aid programs employ a different approach than other roasters to address the socio-economic and environmental challenges in coffee growing regions.  One difference is that the company pays farmers more than the average market price – thereby exceeding labeling organisations’ standards – to ensure a farm’s long-term viability.  Unlike other programs, the Rogers Family Co. ensures that all Community Aid funds go only to farmers, workers and their families for social or environmental projects.

From its inaugural modest project – supplying pencils and paper to a struggling school – Community Aid now turns the company’s Fairly Traded coffee into houses, schools, medicals clinics and food while focusing on education to break the cycle of poverty at farms in 10 countries.   Once described by a reporter as a “Mini-Peace Corps”, Community Aid program starts with paying farmers enough to ensure they meet the cost of production and then its contribution to the farm goes up.

“Community Aid” has completed hundreds of social and environmental projects, including modern houses as well as medical facilities, schools and day care centers for thousands of coffee farm workers and their families.  Community Aid also provides permanent educational programs and scholarships, doctors, nurses, teachers, food and clothing, clean drinking water and energy systems and also protects native plants and animals including endangered species.

About Rogers Estate Coffees

Rogers Estate Coffees is a UK subsidiary of Rogers Family Coffee Co., one of the largest family owned coffee roasters in the USA. The company prides itself on its Community Aid projects and the premium quality of its coffees. Their green coffee beans come from small coffee estates and farms as well as from their own farms in Panama.

Contact Details: Peter Warden, Rogers Estate Coffees (UK) Ltd., Venture House, Arlington Square, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 1WA. Tel: ++ 44 (0) 1344 742 821. Email: enquiries@rogersestatecoffees.co.uk