As part of its effort to achieve sustainable coffee sourcing, the UCC Group will collaborate with Atlantic Commodities Vietnam Ltd. (ACOM), which operates coffee sourcing, processing, and export businesses in Vietnam, to launch a coffee production project in Vietnam’s coffee-producing regions that incorporates the concept of regenerative agriculture.
UCC stands for Ueshima Coffee Company and it has been credited for developing the world’s first canned coffee and starting mass production of the world’s first hydrogen-roasted coffee.
The UCC Group is pursuing new possibilities for coffee and challenging itself to create unprecedented value in coffee. Furthermore, it has established the UCC Sustainability Guidelines and is promoting initiatives toward ‘implementing a nature-positive approach towards 2040.’
Vietnam, one of the world’s leading coffee-producing countries, has recently faced serious challenges including rising temperatures and changes in rainfall patterns due to climate change, in addition to declining soil health and rising production costs. These environmental changes threaten not only coffee yield and quality but also the business foundations of producers, making the construction of a new production model that balances productivity improvement with reduced environmental impact an urgent necessity for stable procurement in the future.
ACOM is the Vietnamese subsidiary of the ECOM Group, the UCC Group’s sustainable coffee procurement partner, and possesses a strong network with local producers and expertise in agricultural technology support. Through collaboration with ACOM, UCC aims to build a sustainable procurement model that contributes to nature positivity. In this project, a pilot farm will be established locally to implement and verify the effectiveness of regenerative agriculture. Specifically, the project will involve introducing ‘shade trees’ to provide shade, ‘cover crops’ to cover the ground, and applying organic compost including “biochar.” The aim is to improve coffee tree growth and increase yield while enhancing adaptability to environmental stress caused by climate change and reducing reliance on chemical fertilizers.
The UCC Group has also set a goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2040, and places great importance on reducing emissions from coffee plantations, which account for a large portion of greenhouse gas emissions in the coffee industry. Through the application of biochar and the reduction of chemical fertilizers, the UCC Group will test a “carbon inset” model that promotes the reduction and absorption of greenhouse gas emissions within the supply chain.
The knowledge gained from the pilot plantation will be shared with local producers, contributing to the improvement of resilience throughout the region.
