Just when you thought the fair trade market was saturated, well, here comes Vega, an online marketplace that streamlines the typical coffee supply chain by cutting out the almost TWO DOZEN middlemen that are normally involved in coffee distribution.
Vega is based in Nicaragua and essentially lets you order ethically produced coffee to your doorstep with a click. What's more, however, is that the farmers get the best deal. "To complicate matters, over the last two years La Roya, a coffee rust plague, has decimated 1/3 of coffee crops throughout Central America," Vega writes on its Kickstarter. "In the communities we work with in Nicaragua, we’ve seen some farmers whose entire crop has been destroyed, forcing them to abandon their land and pursue manual labor elsewhere—sometimes leaving behind their families and emigrating from Nicaragua."
Vega's Kickstarter launched today, so if you'd like to see this social enterprise succeed, think about donating. The team's goal is $20,000.
Contact Information
Vega website
Vega on Kickstarter
What's Driving This Trend
- Direct-to-consumer Coffee Sales
- Vega's streamlined online marketplace for ethically produced coffee cuts out nearly two dozen middlemen, offering innovative opportunities for coffee farmers to sell directly to consumers.
- Ethical Consumerism
- Vega's approach to supplying fair trade, ethically produced coffee responds to consumers' growing demand for socially responsible products and opens up opportunities for businesses to diversify their offerings.
- Disrupting Traditional Supply Chains
- Vega's success in bypassing complex, inefficient coffee supply chains showcases opportunities for other industries to innovate by eliminating intermediaries.
Who This Affects Most
- Coffee Production
- Vega's approach to online coffee sales cuts out middlemen and directly connects farmers to the consumer market, offering a sustainable marketing strategy for coffee producers.
- E-commerce
- Vega's online marketplace for coffee demonstrates how e-commerce can be used to support ethical business practices and reduced intermediaries, offering opportunities for other e-commerce businesses to follow this model.
- Social Enterprises
- Vega's socially responsible business practices highlight disruptive innovation opportunities for companies looking to embrace sustainability, community building, and ethical business practices.
