Nestlé Satellite Buying Stations 20th Anniversary: Improving the lives of coffee farmers

The establishment of the Nestlé Satellite Buying Stations in 1986 has benefited the Filipino coffee farmers immensely.

Set up in key coffee-producing areas around the Philippines, these satellite buying stations give them the opportunity to sell their crops at prevailing world market prices as well as provide them an easier access to Nestlé, the country’s leading procurer of coffee.

Nescafé, Nestlé’s coffee brand, currently sources its coffee from around 100,000 Filipino farmers and 300,000 coffee workers.

With the satellite buying stations in place, they could easily sell their crops to Nestlé and directly benefit from this sale.

A Nestlé initiative

The establishment of the Nestlé Satellite Buying Stations is in line with the company’s corporate business principle of obtaining raw materials directly from its source–a practice that proves beneficial to coffee farmers, the coffee farming industry and Nestlé.

Aside from providing coffee farmers the opportunity to sell their crops at prevailing world market prices, this direct procurement policy likewise gives them the chance to be aware of the strict quality and safety requirements of Nestlé. These then encourage them to achieve or maintain high quality crop standards.

Being in close contact with Nestlé also allows them to benefit from the company’s know-how in coffee planting and crop management.

In fact, the company established the Nestlé Experimental and Demonstration Farm (NEDF) in Davao to specifically address the need to train farmers on the proper way of growing coffee and provide them with high-yielding coffee planting materials. It currently provides 80 percent of all Robusta cuttings in the Philippines.

For Nestlé, meanwhile, this direct procurement policy gives them the opportunity to obtain coffee beans that meet its stringent quality and safety specifications as well as be in touch with the needs and concerns of the Filipino coffee farmers.

From Cavite to Cotabato

The success of the first Nestlé Satellite Buying Station in Davao in 1986 was followed by the establishment of other stations in other key coffee-producing cities and provinces in the country.

There are currently 13 satellite buying stations in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao.

These include the ones in Iloilo, Isabela, Zamboanga, Cotabato, Agusan del Sur, Palawan, Tuguegarao, Solano, Bacolod, Bohol, Calamba, and Cavite.

The establishment of the Nestlé Satellite Buying Stations is just one of the many programs that Nescafé initiated to support Filipino coffee farmers’ yield and income. It believes that helping improve their coffee farming methods and boosting their profits will result in an increase and better supply of coffee in the country.