Nestlé-owned coffee giant Nespresso is pledging a minimum of $500,000 for the expansion of Café Joyeux in the United States. The French-born coffee shop brand, founded in 2017, promotes inclusivity while hiring people with mental and cognitive disabilities.
Café Joyeux launched its first U.S. retail location in New York City in March 2024. In the U.S., Café Joyeux is 100% owned by the nonprofit Joyeux Foundation US, with all profits directly reinvested towards the organization’s mission to provide training and employment for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD).
Credible estimates suggest there are some 8 million Americans with IDD, with an approximately 78% unemployment rate, according to recent U.S. Labor Department statistics. The current cafe in New York, at 599 Lexington Avenue, employs 15 people.
“Our evolving collaboration with Café Joyeux aims to embody joy, inclusivity and authenticity, and contribute to meaningful work opportunities for those with IDD,” Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen, CEO of Nespresso North America, said in an announcement of the collaboration.
To promote the effort, Nespresso is selling a Café Joyeux Vertuo capsule product, using a red honey-processed Salvadoran coffee.
“In America, the country of inclusion and freedom to work, the collaboration has a big role to play for those who have been excluded from the economy, because of their differences,” Yann Bucaille, co-founder of Café Joyeux, said in an announcement of the product launch.
Nespresso has collaborated with Café Joyeux since 2022. There are currently 30 Joyeux cafes in France and abroad, employing more than 250 people with disabilities, or approximately half of the brand’s workforce.
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