Consumer goods giant Unilever, whose brands include Lipton, the world's best-selling tea, has committed to buying all of its tea from sustainable sources. Unilever will start by working with the Rainforest Alliance to certify their own tea farms in Kenya, followed by other tea farms in Africa, Asia and South America.

Unilever CEO Patrick Cescau said the partnership with the Rainforest Alliance "will transform the global tea industry."

As of August, the first Rainforest Alliance Certified tea will be available to restaurants and caterers in Europe. Unilever aims to have all tea used in Lipton Yellow Label and PG Tips (the best-selling tea in the United Kingdom) tea bags sold in Western Europe certified by 2010, and all Lipton tea bags sold globally by 2015.

In addition to the important environmental benefits of tea certification -- Unilever's Kenyan tea growers, for example, do not use pesticides, and are careful not to disturb forests and wildlife -- tea farmers will be able to obtain higher prices. Unilever estimates that the farmers will receive around 2 million Euros more for their tea by 2010 and around 5 million more by 2015.

The Unilever partnership strengthens the Rainforest Alliance's presence in Africa, where we are certifying coffee farms in Ethiopia and cocoa and banana farms in Côte D'Ivoire.

This year at our annual awards dinner gala, held at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, the Rainforest Alliance marked an organizational milestone -- our twentieth anniversary -- while celebrating companies and individuals who are contributing to the health of our planet.

Among the honorees were:

Caribou Coffee, Inc., the second largest company-owned, gourmet coffeehouse operator in the United States, which through its partnership with the Rainforest Alliance is helping its supplier farms to comply with the standards of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN). The SAN, a coalition of leading conservation groups, links responsible farmers with conscientious consumers by means of the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal of approval. Caribou has committed to sourcing fully 50 percent of all its coffee from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms by 2008.

innocent drinks, a London-based smoothie and fruit drink manufacturer and one of the United Kingdom's fastest growing businesses, which uses 100 percent certified bananas in its smoothies and produce from other Rainforest Alliance Certified farms wherever possible.

Nestlé Nespresso SA, espresso division of the food giant Nestlé, which is working with the Rainforest Alliance to improve coffee quality, environmental sustainability and social responsibility on more than 4,500 farms producing beans for Nespresso's gourmet espresso capsules.

The Rainforest Alliance had a strong presence at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's (SCAA) 2007 conference at the Long Beach, California convention center. The event was the largest coffee industry gathering in the world.

Many of the conference's 10,000 attendees visited the Rainforest Alliance booth to learn more about our certification program and new initiatives such as the online Marketplace -- and many also wore their name badges on lanyards bearing our logo and/or a temporary tattoo of the Rainforest Alliance seal.

Among the conference highlights:

• Our agriculture team hosted the fourth annual Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Coffee Breakfast, for a sellout crowd of nearly 350 coffee farmers and buyers and other interested parties. The team also hosted a cocktail party for over 100 conference attendees.
  
  
• UNDP-GEF project manager Leif Pedersen represented the Rainforest Alliance at a panel discussion of growers and experts about the environmental benefits of certified coffee.
  
  
• Senior marketing manager Sabrina Vigilante represented the Rainforest Alliance at a panel discussion on certified coffee marketing. Other panelists included representatives from FairTrade and the organic movement.
  
  
• At the breakfast, the results for our fourth annual "Cupping for Quality" coffee evaluation were announced, and all producers scoring over 85 were honored. While 92 percent of the certified coffees scored 80 or above, the highest score -- 90.04 -- went to Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama.

We would like to thank the following companies for sponsoring our cocktail party and breakfast: Boyd's Coffee Co., Café Bom Dia, Caribou Coffee, Coffee Holding Company, Dallis Coffee, Diedrich Coffee, Ecom, Kanematsu Corp., Millstone Coffee, Royal Coffee, Timothy's Coffee, UCC and Volcafé Specialty.

A number of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffee producers -- and one of our leading certification partners -- won awards or earned other top honors in recent weeks.

• Soon after Hacienda La Esmeralda won our "Cupping for Quality" evaluation at the SCAA conference, their Esmeralda Especial coffee sold for a stunning $130 a pound during the "Best of Panama" online auction -- the third time in four years that Hacienda La Esmeralda coffee has sold for a world record-setting price.
  
  
• In honoring Selva Negra Estate in Nicaragua, pictured below, with their annual Sustainability Award, SCAA officials said that Selva Negra "helps set a new standard of sustainability in our industry." Selva Negra is also noteworthy for having an entire management team of women -- nearly half its workers are also female.
  
  
• Coffee from Brazil's Daterra, pictured below, won two bronze medals in the espresso and cappuccino classes at Australia's prestigious Sydney Royal Coffee Competition.
  
  
• Alfredo Dueñas Davalos of Conservación y Desarrollo, our Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) partner in Ecuador, received the prestigious Hans Dressel Memorial Award from the Pennsylvania Manufacturing Confectioners' Association (PMCA), an international nonprofit confectionery trade association. Alfredo was honored for "hav(ing) helped many cocoa farming families improve their farming production and technology and hence their way of life."

Frog Spotting: The Latest Certified Offerings

The popularity of the Rainforest Alliance Certified seal is growing worldwide.

• North America: if you've visited a Caribou Coffee shop lately, you've definitely seen the frog! It can also be found in many national parks such as Yellowstone and Grand Canyon. And watch for the frog seal on Belegante brand coffee from Coca-Cola, Marques de Paiva coffee in Canada and Farmer Brothers coffee in the United States.
  
  
• Europe: the frog has started to appear in McDonald's in Sweden, and on new Jacques Vabre coffee selections from Peru and Costa Rica in France. In the United Kingdom, Kraft launched Kenco Pure 100 percent certified coffees from Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica; Lyons expanded its line of 100 percent certified coffee; and the frog hopped onto Lil' Stony yogurt made with certified bananas.
  
  
• Japan: the new Trecca Original coffee carries the frog, and Tokyo Allied Roasters expanded its selection of Rainforest Alliance Certified coffees.
  
  
• Latin America: Cafetalera Fernandez of Panama launched its Golden Frog coffee, now sold in Scandinavian countries. And Favorita Fruit bananas from Ecuador now display the green frog seal.

Some of the thousands of other cool places where the frog seal is now found include: at the Imperial Hotel in Japan; in the air on KLM, Asiana and Easy Jet Airlines; in Whole Foods Markets; at Holiday Inn hotels; at 7 - 11 stores in Sweden; at the United Nations in New York; in Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, and Target outlets in the United States, and in retail outlets in over 20 countries around the world.

View other examples.

Our Man in Japan

Siegel Aoki is the Rainforest Alliance's new marketing representative for the Japanese market. Based in Tokyo, Siegel will be the main contact for our partners in Japan, and will work with our marketing team.

Siegel, who earned a Master's in Business Administration from the American Graduate School of International Management in Glendale, AZ, has 25 years of experience in marketing and brand management.

In June, Siegel hosted the Rainforest Alliance's first press conference in Japan. Reporters from 20 Japanese media outlets learned more about our work in sustainable coffee, and our plans to begin certifying tea farms.

Now it's even easier to promote Rainforest Alliance Certified products! We've recently launched new online tools that:

• Streamline the registration and use of seal artwork submission process
  
  
• Help customers find your business through an enhanced directory search
  
  
• Allow you to manage your own listing on our online directories
  
  
• Provide real-time traceability for Rainforest Alliance Certified products, starting with coffee in 2007
  
  
• Offer marketing tips and tools -- such as independent research data and testimonials from business leaders -- to support your sales efforts

Visit the Rainforest Alliance Certified Marketplace and log in with the password you received by e-mail -- or register your company for free with the Rainforest Alliance -- to get access to all these benefits and the privilege of using the little green frog seal on your products. For questions, contact us at rac@ra.org, or (212) 677-1900.

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The Rainforest Alliance works to conserve biodiversity and ensure sustainable livelihoods by transforming land-use practices, business practices and consumer behavior.

© 2007 Rainforest Alliance