Company: This Side Up Coffee   https://thissideup.coffee/

Bio : Lennart Clerkx , Founder

Lennart founded the company to inspire roasters and growers to create value together so the coffee world can become a more equal, open place. He is in charge of long term planning with farmers, new business and social / environmental project development, recruitment, social media and marketing. He is a coach to his amazing team and safeguards the vision as the company evolves.

Company Presentation:

This Side Up is a proven blueprint of how to make it from today’s coffee world to that of tomorrow.

In all four corners of the value chain (farmers, facilitators, roasters and consumers), we provide working examples of how coffee trade can turn from today’s exploitative system to a fully transparent, equal and cooperative endeavour. We are not a trading company. Coffee traders, by definition, exist because they make money from an information imbalance between coffee farmers and coffee buyers. This Side Up was created to dissolve this imbalance and return power to the creators of your coffee. Along the way, we realised that we are building a community of likeminded coffee professionals everywhere along the value chain: people who understand that coffee trade can be an open endeavour, based on sharing instead of competition, based on humanity instead of simply making money.

Interview recorded by: Sally Osaf