Born out of a mission to empower women across borders and within local communities, Sisters’ Story Coffee – a first-of-its-kind Canadian coffee brand, launches today. Sisters’ Story Coffee is made from organic and Fairtrade Certified coffee beans exclusively purchased from farms owned and operated by Indigenous women in the Andes of Northern Peru. Fifteen per cent of each online sale of Sisters’ Story Coffee will go to a participating Canadian women’s shelter or sexual assault centre of the purchaser’s choice.
Sister’s Story Coffee is an initiative by Sumac Community Worker Co-operative, a Canadian employee-owned social enterprise with a vision to build a caring economy. The initiative was inspired by Café Femenino, a Fairtrade Certified coffee co-operative founded by a group of entrepreneurial women farmers in Peru, and from which Sisters’ Story solely purchases its coffee beans. The Indigenous women in these rural areas live in male-dominated societies, experience violence and have very little financial or decision-making power, despite carrying the majority of the workload in the home and in labour-intensive coffee production. Café Femenino enables women farmers to grow and sell their own product, providing them with direct payment and a Fairtrade premium to invest in their businesses and communities.
“After learning that women in North America also commonly experience gendered violence, Café Femenino mandated that any coffee roaster purchasing their beans must also support women in their local communities” explained Lisa Schincariol McMurtry, Sisters’ Story Coffee Community Liaison. “With this in mind, we decided to launch Sisters’ Story Coffee as an ongoing ethical fundraising avenue for women’s shelters and sexual assault centres in the communities where people purchase our coffee”.
Sisters’ Story Coffee is available online at sistersstorycoffee.com and offers a dark and medium roast in whole bean or auto grind, in addition to a medium roast decaf created using the Swiss Water® Process. Sisters’ Story Coffee medium and dark roast varieties are available in 340g bags for $15.40 CAD each and Sisters’ Story Coffee medium roast decaf is available in a 340g bag for $16.15 CAD each. Sisters’ Story Coffee’s bags are designed to be fully compostable made from paper and other bio-based materials.
For more information visit sistersstorycoffee.com or follow on Instagram and Facebook at @sistersstorycoffee and Twitter @sisstorycoffee.
