I’ve been dreaming about a good espresso machine for a while. A machine for which you grind freshly roasted beans yourself to make a caffè like a real barista, and which would win the approval of regular customers in an Italian bar. Quite apart from the exquisite coffee taste, I would like to have this machine because it doesn’t produce any waste. But above all, so that I can wholeheartedly join the coffee revolution.

In the Netherlands we’re now seeing a true coffee revolution.  A growing number of entrepreneurs are on a mission to disrupt the coffee chain. A mission that goes  beyond selling fair trade or organic coffee. They are shortening the chain by delivering coffee straight to people’s homes and are proof that a fair price for coffee farmers, respect for the environment, stimulating the local economy and delicious coffee can go hand in hand. And that’s desperately needed.

Here in the Netherlands we drink a lot of coffee – 3 to 5 cups a day on average. And because of our love of coffee, multinationals such as Nestlé, Starbucks and Jacobs Douwe Egberts each earn billions of euros a year. But the coffee farmers are not benefiting. Most of them live below the poverty line.

The price of coffee is now so low that the farmers have to sell their coffee below cost price, while we are still paying the normal price in the shops. As a result, poverty and inequality are increasing. These coffee revolutionaries want to put an end to that.

I’ll give you a few examples of brands that are showing us that things can be done differently. The founder of Moyee Coffee felt it wasn’t fair that 85% of all the money earned from coffee goes to multinationals. And so he decided to make the entire chain more sustainable and called this approach ‘fair chain’. Everyone in the chain gets a fair price. In addition, they roast the coffee in the country of origin. As a result, the revenues that remain in the country are 300% higher than when roasting would take place in Europe, for example.