Global Certification Body Refuses To Certify Caged Civet Coffee
Creativecommons.org/Seb Fowler
UTZ Certified, the leading label for sustainable coffee production, will no longer certify producers that use caged civets and other animals to produce coffee.
The decision marks a major success for World Animal Protection’s civet coffee campaign, which was launched in September 2013, following a BBC investigation into civet coffee production in Indonesia.
Creativecommons.org/Stefan Magdalinski
Civets are small, nocturnal mammals, native to tropical Asia and Africa. The coffee they help to create – by eating and excreting coffee beans, which are then collected and cleaned – has become increasingly popular. But to keep up with rising demand, civets are now being cruelly captured using box traps, snares and hunting dog and forced to live in inhumane conditions.
Civets are also frequently injured during capture and they experience extreme stress when handled by humans.
Creativecommons.org/Roberto Verzo
WAP been working with UTZ Certified and other certification bodies to explore how certified coffee producers can avoid involvement with caged civet coffee production.
The UTZ Code of Conduct will be open for public consultation in Indonesia later this year to help understand the implications it will have for the already-certified UTZ farmers who produce animal coffee as a side activity.
Creativecommons.org/Seb Fowler
Martin Cooke, International Head of Corporate Engagement at World Animal Protection, said: “We applaud UTZ Certified for recognising that capturing animals from the wild and keeping them in cramped cages, just to create a novelty ‘luxury’ drink, simply must stop. We now want other certification standards to follow UTZ’s lead and to take a zero tolerance position on caged production methods.
“We want a certification scheme for wild, cage-free civet coffee, so that both retailers and consumers can easily recognise genuine, wild-sourced, animal friendly products.
