Articles

A thought leadership piece - Stephen Leighton During these crazy times, there is a tendency for us all to think a little closer to home. Isolation makes us look inward and shut out the wider issues of the world. Behaviour patterns are altered as people start focusing more on self – this has been demonstrated in the last few weeks with the phenomenal panic buying in supermarkets, and the severe drop in charitable giving. This is only natural; survival is one of our most primitive of instincts, but we need to break through this, we need to keep looking outside...

Biodynamic farming practices are already widely-recognised in the wine industry, and are considered to be one of the oldest ’systemised' organic farming methods. This method was introduced and pioneered by Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian philosopher in the late 19th, early 20th century who was focussed on the idea that farming should not just be about producing crops, but should be about holistic agriculture as part of a wider spiritual philosophy. How is biodynamic agriculture different from organic? Biodynamic farming shares many of its principles and methodology with organic farming. There is a big focus on soil health by not using pesticides, herbicides...

If you saw the word “coffee” on page 8 of the newspaper recently and instantly thought “this is a must-read” you’re probably aware of the coffee price crisis that’s been an ongoing challenge for the past 2 years. However it’s often treated as a niche story, so let me give you some background from my perspective, just in case.  For many years commercial coffee has been traded on something called the “c market”. This commodity coffee is often sealed by a paper transaction between traders to offset risk of under or over supply. This market is often driven by what happens in...

I think we can all agree now, that recycling is a very important part of everyday life. Resources are not infinite, and landfill gets, well ….. full. It's always something that's bugged me about coffee bags, because of the way they are made, they can not easily be recycled. We have tried many different bags, but none keep the coffee as fresh as we would like, so rather than compromise the product, we have carried on regardless. This keeps me awake at night as sustainability is not only about buying coffee fairly and with ethics, its not only using organic...

Day 1   A trip around Central America Day 1   I have decided to do a travel diary for my trip this year to central america. The trip will start in Costa Rica (via Chicago and Miami) where I spend two days, then a flight to Guatemala City where I will spend 3 days travelling all over Guatemala, then a drive to El Salvador where I am going to spend 5 days and then a road trip to Honduras where we will spend a whilst stop 1 day, then more driving to Nicaragua where it will be two days then...