Standart - MAGAZINE
Standart is a well recognised and highly reputed publication amongst coffee professionals, enthusiasts, artists, writers and print lovers. They were awarded with the title 2019, 2018 and 2017 Best Coffee Magazine by Sprudge.
This Side Up contributed to several editions:
Edition 4: You Say Potato - a piece co-written by Lennart and Lauren Rosenberg on the potato taste defect (PTD).
Edition 8: Anyone Can Trade Coffee - Lennart lifts the veil on the dynamics of coffee trade and logistics.
Edition 16: Circularity Imagined - Maarten en Lennart’s practical approach to the circular economy in the coffee industry.
Edition 17: Being the Boss - a personal piece by Lennart about what values and life choices led him to become the founder of This Side Up.
Edition 29: Democratic Republic of the Congo - Lennart gives us a personal view on and experience of a vibrant developing country he’s come to love.
Koffietcacao - MAGAZINE
KoffieTCacao is the leading coffee, tea and chocolate magazine in the Netherlands. It targets “professionals, home baristas, geeks, chocoholics, lovers of real tea and the enthusiastic home cook”. The magazine is distributed in the Netherlands and Belgium.
This Side Up appears frequently as supplier of the specialty coffees roasted by Dutch roasters and tested by their panel. We also contributed to:
Edition 16: KTC op Reis - Rwanda - Lennart talks about his travels to Rwanda.
Edition 29: Sustainability Column - Maarten shares his views on sustainability.
Edition 35: Opium en Koffie - Lennart talks about his travels to Thailand.
Edition 48: Tien Jaar Transparantie in de Koffieketen - an interview with Lennart about This Side Up’s pioneering role in transparency.
De prijs van mijn koffie - book
“An honest book about the history of coffee, coffee trade and the sustainable future of coffee. Aided by experts, coffee farmers and baristas, we outline the challenges the coffee industry is facing and what is needed to secure the future of coffee.”
Maarten contributed to the book as an expert about the circular economy, how digital media can enhance the power of farmers and why This Side Up is transparant in its price breakdowns.
The Dutch version of this book was released in March 2020. Authors Bregje Deben and Demian van der Reijden have been working on an English translation.
Order the book here, or read an article about it by Misset Horeca.
MVO NEDERLAND - THIS SIDE UP RESEARCHES IMPLEMENTATION OF AGROFORESTRY IN INDONESIA
The call for more sustainable coffee is growing stronger due to the noticeable role the coffee industry plays in rainforest clearing, ecosystem degradation, soil depletion and climate change. And in the precarious existence of coffee farmers. The use of alternative farming systems such as a food forest can provide an answer to these problems. Yet farmers are often stuck with conventional farming due to a lack of knowledge or capital. That is why coffee importer This Side Up started a project to help their supplier ASNIKOM – an Indonesian cooperative of coffee farmers – with making their agricultural system more sustainable.”
Read the article here (in Dutch).
This Side Up—an interview with Maarten!
“‘What does a coffee farmer get?’, ‘How much does transport cost?’, ‘What does the coffee importer have left over from the sale?’ Most companies do not give a really honest answer to all these questions. This Side Up does! — read this insightful interview published on Koffietje NL.
Read the article here! (In Dutch).
KRO-NCRV - De PRIJSKNALLER
“In the episode of De Prijsknaller about coffee we saw that coffee farmers are paid far too little. What can you do for a 'fairer' cup of coffee? The solution is to drink direct trade coffee. But what exactly is that? And what does that involve?”
In March 2021, both Maarten and Lennart were shown on prime time Dutch television in de show De Prijsknaller about products that are actually too cheap to be true. In the episode about coffee, the This Side Up Way is presented as a viable solution to so much poverty, pain and inequality in the coffee industry. Scroll down below to see the episode, but this article was published a few days afterwards, to back up the tv show.
Read the article here (in Dutch).
Financieel Dagblad - Opinie
“Next to news and background about the financial markets, business, economy and politics, the FD also offers a platform for opinion and debate for those with decisive powers in the Netherlands. The Opinion (Opinie) file provides an overview of the most recent opinion articles, columns and letters.”
In May 2019, Bas contributed a piece on direct coffee trade an why it is a solution for the poverty gap in our respective industry. It was a responsive on the article “En de koffieboer, hoe lang ploetert hij nog voort?” (And the coffee farmer, how long will he keep on struggling?).
Read Bas’ opinion piece here (behind paywall).
The new times - rwanda’s leading daily
“The Embassy of Rwanda in the Netherlands and two Dutch companies, This Side Up and White Label Coffee, will today launch a new approach to promote Rwandan coffee during an international coffee festival there.” wrote the Rwandese newspaper The New Times in March 2016.
“According to Lennart Clerkx, owner of This Side Up, most coffee producers do not know where their coffee ends up when it leaves the country. In most cases, they are dependent on traders to promote their coffee, while they could make a much better product if they would have the opportunity to communicate with roasters and baristas directly, Clerkx is quoted as saying in the statement. He said This Side Up, a small specialty coffee sourcing company that connects smallholder growers and roasters in a short and fair value chain, ensures that farmers get a fair price and advice in what it takes to produce better coffee.”
Read the full article here.
DEnk doe duurzaam - Rijksoverheid - (Dutch)
Since the Autumn of 2020, This Side Up is proudly supplying coffee to Rijkswaterstaat - the executive body of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure. With a staff of 8,000 people and an application going through a public European tender process, we’re excited to have entered this market that is dominated with cheap, opaque and low grade coffees that are harmful for both people and planet in the respective value chains. Our coffees from our partners of Rwanda, Indonesia and Ethiopia make the blend, which is connected to a 8 year long contract - delivering stability for all partners in our value chain for this duration.
In this article, part of the “Hero Stories” of the online magazine of the Dutch Government, Bo Zwarts (roaster of Zwarts.Coffee) and our Maarten talk about how this al came around, how they won the tender, and how other sustainable companies can follow.
Read the full article (in Dutch) here.
This side up in academia - the journal of cleaner production
Back in 2017, when Maarten did his internship with This Side Up, he researched on how to implement all kinds of cool circular economy business ideas into our value chain. On this research he graduated, and decided to publish it. A staggering 4 years later, this was published in January 2021, in the prestigious Journal of Cleaner Production.
In this article, he and co-author Julian Kirchherr attempt to bridge the gap between academical research on the circular economy and real-life business experiments in order to find out what works best for the world we live in and moreover, how to decrease our negative impacts on that particular world.
Get access to the full article here.
CBI - the dutch ministry of foreign affairs
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has identified This Side Up as a crucial player on the coffee market. “The Netherlands also has importers who specialise in ethical products, including coffee. Normally these focus on specific organic and fair-trade markets.” naming This Side Up as one of only two companies in this area.
Read the full report here.
nederland voedselland (Dutch)
Matthijs Smit of Nederland Voedselland interviewed our own Maarten as well as Lotje Kaak from Fairtrade Original in the early days of 2020 about what to look out for when you want to buy honest, traceable and “good” coffee. The article highlights three simple steps that are easy to follow and remember for every consumer, especially in the jungle of in screaming claims and opaque certifications.
Read the full article here.
Ikawa: sustainability series
“Lennart soon realised that to fully actualise his vision, TSU had to become a green coffee importer. As an importer Lennart has maintained his commitment to fostering relationships and community. Although many specialty coffee traders emphasise the importance of long-term relationships between producers and roasters, the quality and uniqueness of the coffees themselves are often the first priority.”
Check out the first part of this three-part series that explores different aspects of sustainability from IKAWA’s customer network, which extends across over 80 countries. It highlights how IKAWA’s partners, who each play different roles in the coffee industry, are contributing to the evolution of a more sustainable supply chain.
Read the full article here.
The coffeevine
The Coffeevine is one of Europe’s leading coffee subscriptions, and a blog site about around the worlds best specialty coffee hotspots. They also publish news about what’s happening in the coffee scene.
“When he [Lennart] came back to Amsterdam in 2011 the local coffee culture was literally taking off and local roasters were on the look out for great coffees that they could source directly. Yet, although the idea of buying coffee directly from the producer sounds great in theory, in practice it’s often way more complex and expensive than one might imagine.”
Check out the interview with Lennart about This Side Up’s business model here.
Greenbuzz
GreenBuzz is a network for professionals active or interested in sustainability. We are a peer-to-peer network based on word of mouth recommendations. Diverse events and formats are focused on different sustainability topics. At an event in Zürich at the Jacobs Foundation headquarters in 2016, This Side Up presented its business model as an different route to farmer development than the typical foundation model.
“Clerkx said the secret of his coffee importing company’s success was his approach to farmers, roasters and marketing. Building and maintaining a good relationship with farmers, maintaining an open dialogue to improve coffee quality, facilitating contact and direct trade between farmers and roasters to exchange ideas and knowledge were key elements. Making specialty coffee trade transparent, keeping the value chain short and fair and last but not least direct marketing were essential for his success too.”
Check the full piece here.
Daily Coffee news - Roast Magazine
“This Side Up Coffees says it either buys directly from the farmer or provides a complete breakdown of the coffee price, down to the payment to the farmer — while backing it up with proof.” writes Andy Feltman in July 2017.
The article is called “Transparant Trade Series: Finding the Essence of Direct Trade Sourcing” and gives a good overview about direct trade in the coffee industry.
“What sets these direct trade models apart — and it may seem trivial, but it is not — is that they begin with the more tangible commitment to improving farmer incomes, and work backward to figure out how to improve coffee quality, then tie the farmers’ economic returns to quality. This may or may not come from roasters spending more time at origin, and this may or may not come about as our marketing materials fill up with more and better origin stories. It does come from ensuring that farmers and roasters collectively appreciate the economics of quality-based coffee markets.”
Read the full article here.
Dani Bordiniuc - Coffee and Stories
“I’m grateful for the time spent chatting, during which I learned so much more about specialty coffee sourcing and the numerous steps involved in bringing those delicious coffee beans from the hands of the farmer to the cup of the final consumer.
We talked about the challenges and rewards in setting up his business, the intricacies of direct trade, coffee producing countries which are currently underestimated and many more topics.”
Read the full article here.
Greg meenaham - there is no sustainability without economics
“But for those producers showing signs of professionalism, of continuous improvement, of environmental concern and farm resiliency, you almost can’t pay too much for the green. These are small businesses, entrepreneurs, the true engines of economic development in their communities. These are producers who are copied by the neighboring farmers, incentivized to do so by the profitability that is attainable. Talking to, rather than about, smallholders is key. Maarten van Keulen, Head of Operations at This Side Up Coffees, said,
The importance of the C-price fades when you’re talking about what’s going on at the farm, at the roastery, and at the café. – Maarten van Keulen, Head of Operations at This Side Up”
This particular article is not solely about This Side Up, but it shows the debate about coffee sustainability, where it is headed, and where This Side Up fits in this picture. Definitely worth a read.
Read the full article here.