We created the world’s first Bird Friendly® Coffee in a Nespresso® compatible pod filled with exceptional organic coffee from Honduras.
This was one of 2 world first pod coffees in our Nespresso® compatible Eco Coffee Pod Advent Calendar, featuring entirely plastic free and home compostable coffee pods and now available in our new Organic Origin Selection Gift Box
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Our World First Bird Friendly Certified Coffee Pod
Grown by Miriam Elisabeth Perez (pictured), or Betty to her friends, on her Clave De Sol farm in the mountains of Honduras, the way this coffee is grown helps preserve critical habitat for birds and wildlife, fight climate change, protect biodiversity and support farmers committed to conservation and sustainable farming too.
All this in one delicious plastic free and home compostable Nespresso-compatible coffee pod!
Find out more about Betty below, but first...
More about our Bird Friendly Coffee Pods:
- Tasting notes: You can look forward to notes of honey, orange & hazelnuts.
- Highlights: Organic certified. Women in Coffee mark. Bird Friendly® Coffee certified.
- Origin: Honduras
- Altitude: 1300 m
- Environment: Tropical & volcanic
- Harvest period: December to march
- Harvest type: By hand
- Process: Washed then dried on African beds
What is Bird Friendly® Certified Coffee?
Considered the environmental gold standard in sustainable food production, the Smithsonian Institute has been protecting the habitats of migratory songbirds through their stringent Bird Friendly® Coffee certification since the 90s. In their own words...
“Through a mix of foliage cover, tree height and biodiversity, songbirds and all wildlife can thrive and coffee growers benefit from the additional premium they can charge for their Bird Friendly® Coffee. So the stringent growing standards required mean the Bird Friendly® Coffee program is also a critical asset in fighting climate change.
Far from the ravages of monoculture including mass deforestation, soil and biodiversity depletion, water pollution among other disadvantages, Bird Friendly® Coffee principles promotes alternative growing methods such as shade grown coffee. Instead of man-made pesticides or chemical fertilizers in the coffee fields, growing coffee plants and other plant and tree species in forests and under tree cover allows for permaculture – where each living species serves a purpose for its neighbour. It’s as mother nature intended.
Bird Friendly® Coffee requires farms to be certified organic first, but also to meet additional criteria to ensure that the forest cover, which provides habitat for birds and other wildlife, is well maintained. Bird Friendly® Coffee therefore offers all the environmental benefits of organic coffee and more.
For example, these additional Bird Friendly® Coffee standards require a minimum of 40% shade coverage and regulate the diversity and size of trees that make up the canopy which ensure a variety of habitats that support abundant wildlife. In fact, surveys by biologists have shown that a shade coffee plantation harbours almost as much biodiversity as a virgin forest.
Bird Friendly AND Vegan Friendly Coffee
All of the above also means our organic Bird Friendly® Coffee Pod for Nespresso® Machines is Vegan friendly thanks to the conservation of birds, wildlife and biodiversity on the farms where the coffee grows. If you’re intrigued then our What is vegan coffee? Blog goes into more detail about what makes a vegan coffee.
Meet Betty, Our Grower
Meet Betty, the woman behind our Honduran Bird Friendly® Coffee and a woman with a mission and one of the most influential people at the Café Organica Marcala or COMSA coffee cooperative.
Betty grows her exceptional specialty grade Honduran coffee at her Clave de Sol farm at an altitude of 1,300 metres using organic methods, where birds, insects and trees are preserved and can thrive thanks to responsible production and farming methods.
COMSA itself is an association of small-scale organic coffee producers located in the municipality of Marcala in western Honduras, which is where Miriam Elizabeth Pérez (Betty) grew up and now lives and works with her 5 children and husband Rodolfo.
It was her childhood in Marcala that helped inspire her journey in coffee, which began when she was just 6 years old when she used to go to her grandfather’s plantations.
This was how she learned to pick, cut and even transport coffee and that know-how stood her in excellent stead when she 2.5 hectares and bought 6 more with her husband, representing the third generation of her family to produce coffee.
In the last decade and a half she’s become the leading figure in COMSA which is unsurprising as, when you visit her farm, it is immediately obvious that she is a woman of action and a natural leader among her employees.
COMSA - The co-operative behind our Organic Bird Friendly Coffee Capsule
