JDE Peet’s and Enveritas Announce Global Deforestation-Free Plan

“Coffee Plantation” by borman818 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Global coffee giant JDE Peet’s says it has signed memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with at least four coffee-producing countries for a new deforestation-free coffee initiative.

The publicly traded company announced today the completion of a pilot program in Vietnam, as well as signed MOUs with coffee sector leaders in Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea, Tanzania, and Uganda, with more expected to come.

The JDE Peet’s deforestation-free coffee initiative comes through a partnership with the coffee-farmer-focused sustainability verification provider Enveritas. According to JDE Peet’s, the partnership will involve a combination of satellite imagery, artificial intelligence (AI) and on-the-ground verification to measure deforestation on coffee lands within the JDE Peet’s supply chain.

The company said it will allow “local operators, governments, NGOs and farmers to better mitigate their deforestation risks.”

The JDE Peet’s/Enveritas deforestation-free partnership is notably designed for compliance with the new EU deforestation-free regulations (EUDR). Enforcement for the new law — which is designed to prevent deforestation associated with numerous agricultural products imported in the EU, including coffee — is scheduled to begin for large companies beginning in 2025.

“I am excited that this innovative new program, which is fully aligned with the EU’s regulation on deforestation-free products, will ensure continued access to the EU market for the millions of smallholder farmers we work with around the world,” JDE Peet’s CEO Fabien Simon said in today’s announcement.

The announcement did not specify whether or how deforestation-related information will be shared with other actors in the conglomerate’s supply chain, nor whether the information would be available to other interested parties. DCN has reached out to the company for clarification.

Publicly traded, Amsterdam-based JDE Peet’s was formed through a 2019 merger of United States-based Peet’s Coffee and Dutch coffee giant Jacobs Douwe Egberts. Prior to an IPO as JDE Peet’s, both those companies were wholly owned by an investment arm of JAB Holding Company, the German billionaire Reimann-family-owned organization that has made tens of billions of dollars worth of investments in the coffee industry since first acquiring Peet’s in 2012.

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