“I have tasted over half a million cups of coffee!” Koffi Kouame works as a coffee taster in the Nescafé factory in Abidjan. He is 42 years old and married with four children. “My job mostly involves the sampling of coffee. I also sample cocoa, but I prefer coffee tasting. I taste about 120 cups of coffee each day, but I drink just two: one in the morning with my breakfast and one in the afternoon. It makes me proud to know that I am in some way responsible for ensuring the quality of the Nescafé that we produce here."

Coffee, the world’s second most important agricultural commodity,has its origins in Africa. It grows best in the “coffee belt”, a region of the world that straddles the equator between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. For many of the countries in the belt, coffee is a valuable export. For some of the communities within these countries, producing coffee is the primary economic activity.

The vast majority of coffee farmers – some 80% – are smallholders owning a few hectares of land or less. For many of these farmers, growing coffee represents their only source of income. Nestlé is a regular buyer of coffee produced in most of the coffee growing countries. 55% of Nescafé for example is produced in developing countries, including this factory Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.