Swiss Water inspires Canada Coffee Companies to Give this November

We are thrilled to announce that this November, we are celebrating our Canadian partners and aiming to double Canada’s impact on women’s health in coffee-growing regions. Our goal is to raise $70K to provide life-saving cervical cancer screenings and treatment for women in Ethiopia and Kenya.

To kick off the campaign, we spoke with CJ Yang, an advocate of our work in her role at Swiss Water Decaffeinated Coffee Inc. Swiss Water has generously committed to supporting our November campaign, and we invite you to learn more about how they’ve integrated Grounds for Health into their marketing and social responsibility efforts. In addition to being a sustaining major donor, the Swiss Water employees raised over $2,500 in the past year through their Grounds for Health coffee program, benefiting an additional 46 women at origin with cervical cancer prevention services.

What is your role at Swiss Water & how long have you been involved in the coffee industry?

I’ve been with Swiss Water for six years and in the coffee industry for about 12 years. At Swiss Water, my role is Senior Customer Relationship Specialist, so it involves working with customers, roasters, and importers in specialty coffee. We’re based in Delta, Canada, but we have customers globally and I work with international accounts to have Swiss Water easily available globally. 

Another project that I work very closely with is called the Small Batch Series. So this is a cross collaboration within our sales team, green buying team and marketing team. We highlight really delicious coffee that comes with a lot of traceability and coffees that can help support community projects. 

Tell me what your connection to our work at Grounds for Health has been?

Swiss Water has been actively advocating for Grounds for Health for many years by raising awareness externally to our customers, but also internally. When I joined Swiss Water, that’s how I first found out about Grounds for Health. I then had the opportunity to lead the Grounds for Health coffee program at Swiss Water, where we sell coffee to our staff to help raise funds. 100% of the money raised from the Grounds for Health coffee that we sell to our team is donated.

Tell me about some of the success you have seen in the partnership throughout your time in your role. 

The Grounds for Health coffee program has been around with our company even before I started leading the project, but one of the things that I really wanted to work on was the packaging and the labeling of the coffee. So I designed it and then put a lot more coffee information on the packaging and traceability information, with Grounds for Health information on top. So this worked really well because not only were staff buying it for their own consumption at home, but they were excited to give it as gifts during the holidays, or even throughout the year. It gives more opportunity for people to ask, “Oh, what’s Grounds for Health?” The coffee is sourced by our green team and we have two offerings, the regular coffee or the decaf and the initiative goes on all year round. 

What do you see as some of the benefits of the Grounds for Health and Swiss water partnership? 

Our partnership with Grounds for Health allows Swiss Water to strengthen our relationship and give back to coffee growing communities, which is really important to us. And, on the other hand, we have an amazing platform and wide reach of customers, so we are able to use this to support Grounds for Health by amplifying and raising awareness about cervical cancer prevention. For us, this partnership is very important to support the growers and coffee growing communities.

Supporting Grounds for Health is not just about the immediate healthcare interventions, it’s also about building sustainable health care, care for those at origin in coffee communities. Grounds for Health is training local health care providers and really empowering them to continue providing cervical cancer prevention service so that they can also continue independently as well.

What do you wish others knew about the work we do?

I wish others knew the importance of healthcare in the coffee supply chain. Grounds for Health supports the Sustainable Development Goals in health and wellbeing and improves health outcomes for women in coffee growing regions. This contributes to stronger and more resilient communities in the long term. 

Anything else you’d like to add?

Yes, our marketing team also does bigger projects like the Grounds for Health Week and other things, and then the part I’m involved in is the Grounds for Health coffee. I just wanted to shout out to the amazing work our marketing team does as well throughout the whole year!

Join Swiss Water and our other incredible donors and partners by making a gift today. 

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