Interview with Joeri Kalwij
Joeri Kalwij found his way into the coffee world in 2008, when a commodity trader approached him to establish a sustainability and certification department in Papua New Guinea (PNG). Eleven years later, he joined NKG and as General Manager at New Guniea Highland Coffee.
NKG Integrity Champion: Thumbs up for reliable colleagues
As a dedicated Coffee Stock Supervisor and member of the Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) Committee, I am passionate about fostering a safe and healthy work environment that supports operational excellence. My focus is on ensuring strict compliance with safety protocols during stock handling to protect our team members and maintain the integrity of our coffee products. Preserving coffee quality is vital to our success, and I am committed to upholding the highest standards to ensure safe, efficient, and responsible operations.
Coffee Culture: A Bean of Knowledge for the Future of Italian Coffee
Interview with Deborah Righeschi, Project Manager of Bero Italia’s Cultural Initiative.
Accelerate Action: Why Gender Equity in Coffee Matters
Gender equity is not just a moral obligation – it’s essential to creating stronger, more innovative teams and businesses. In a world where many companies and countries are experiencing setbacks in gender equality, it is more important than ever for us to stand by our values and promote diversity, equal opportunities and inclusion. At NKG, we have identified three key areas of focus for the upcoming years to foster our commitment to advancing gender equity: closing the gender pay gap, fostering equity in recruitment, and empowering women in trade and commercial roles.
Virtual Tour: Atlas Coffee Importers
Atlas Coffee Importers was founded in Seattle, Washington in 1998 by the inimitable Craig Holt with what was a radical idea for the time: what’s good for our business should be good for the entire supply chain. From that foundation, we developed a common purpose and language with some of the most quality-focused producers around the world. Since joining the Neumann Kaffee Gruppe in 2018, we are proud to be supported in our work and our values by our US and global partners.
Buzzed on Brews: Second Edition of World of Coffee Asia Takes Over Jakarta
World of Coffee opened its inaugural Asia edition in Busan, responding to the region’s rapidly developing industry. This year’s follow-up in Jakarta showed out in equally spectacular fashion from May 16 to 18, with over 400 participants drawing an international crowd in a clash of culture and coffee. The three-day affair was filled with workshops, cupping corners, and the highly-anticipated World Brewers’ Championship.
Mail from Group Comms: A personal Update
This time in our MAG, we talk about a word and concept you probably all find rather abstract and maybe also slightly over-used: change. It can cause frustration, feelings of being overwhelmed and even provoke some kind of inner resistance – if that’s you, I can definitely relate! However, I am convinced that there is not only incredible potential but also the opportunity to challenge ourselves, learn and grow to achieve meaningful progress. We do not always see how far we have come and are pretty good at overseeing past achievements. Thus, we wanted to make exactly this visible: where at NKG are stories to celebrate, successes and achievements which became reality due to open minds and new ideas?
Gaining Resilience: How we navigate external influences
At NKG, we are no strangers to navigating complexity – whether it is adapting to regulations like EUDR or responding to broader global events like climate change. While it is easy to feel overwhelmed by the weight of these challenges, we are also uniquely positioned to grow stronger together. Resilience is not just about weathering the storm; it’s about building the capacity to thrive despite uncertainty.
In this issue of the INSIDE NKG MAG, we will explore how NKG is addressing the external influences we face today. Offering insights into important topics in our shared professional context, we aim to keep you, our employees, well-informed and confident in our support.
Changes for a strong future: Aligning our strategic approach, organizational structure and cultural transformation
In the past years, we have seen a lot of changes in the world around us, not just directly in coffee – and that has changed the challenges and contents of our work. While before, the tone at NKG has been to go ahead and keep on doing what we do in the best way we can – and grow from year to year -, we now see ourselves confronted with a much more complex reality: doing a great job buying, milling and selling and moving coffee is not enough anymore. At NKG, we have already worked on this intensively and adapted to these fast-paced times in many ways. But still: We need to further integrate the context and changes we experience in our strategic as well as very practical approach, reflect upon it in our organizational structure, the people leading the way and the culture we live at NKG. This is key to make sure that we will continue to be the successful number one in the world’s coffee trade in the future.
Interview with Melyne Achieng
For the past two years, Regional Responsible Business Program Manager Melyne has been on an – for her – unexpected journey in the coffee world. “Although I was open to the agriculture sector, I never imagined working in coffee until I joined NKG,” she says. Her passion for coffee started during the interview process, sparked by an introduction to various grades of green coffee.
