Championing community
The country’s leading specialty fresh coffee brand*, Hummingbird Coffee Roasters, dates back more than 30 years to a roastery founded in Christchurch.
Originally Garden City Coffee, George and Sue Cowper bought their local coffee roaster and café and rebranded it to Hummingbird Coffee. Their son Nick now leads the business in New Zealand.
“Hummingbird actively supports the people who both grow and drink our coffee, which means we donate to local initiatives and choose fair trade green beans,” Nick says.
“Our purpose is to empower people to make a positive impact through something as simple as their daily brew.”
In 2004 Hummingbird became a champion of fair trade in New Zealand, being one of the first in partnership with Trade Aid to directly import fair trade, organic, green coffee beans.
Now a national brand, the company still maintains direct relationships with coffee growers and pays a premium for these beans. Since 2005, this amounts to an extraordinary $10 million in premiums paid to tens of thousands of growers and their families in 10 countries.
“As a leading specialty coffee company, it’s always about delivering distinctive, memorable coffees. But we’re also committed to doing so in a way that aims to positively impact the communities our business reaches and the planet we live on.”
Following the devastating 2011 earthquakes that destroyed Christchurch’s CBD, the Hummingbird team established a pop-up café in the Re:Start container mall, helping to revitalise the inner city block. A new Re:Start coffee blend was created, where 30 cents from every 200g pack was donated to help rebuild the badly damaged Court Theatre.
Now known as Hummingbird’s Green Bean Fund, this charitable initiative donates $1 from every $100 of green coffee beans Hummingbird buys to local communities within New Zealand.
In early 2023, as a national Crisis Response Partner to the Student Volunteer Army (SVA), Hummingbird donated $50,000 to support communities displaced by the Auckland floods. This then extended into the SVA’s efforts to help people and communities on the ground in Hawke’s Bay following the devastating Cyclone Gabrielle. An ongoing financial contribution and partnership directly supports SVA clubs across Aotearoa, ensuring volunteers are equipped with PPE, trained in crisis response, and are fully empowered and ready to support our communities when crisis hits.
On home soil, Hummingbird supported Christchurch regeneration initiative The Green Lab to establish the Mairehau Neighbourhood Garden with a $10,000 donation. Funds helped cover the labour costs of working bees, build compost containers, purchase plants, install a polytunnel and a crucial water mains tap.
This year, Hummingbird continues its Christchurch regeneration journey with a new partnership supporting The Green Lab in building a Christchurch-first sensory garden in the city’s Red Zone. The Avon-Ōtākaro Nature Play Park is thoughtfully designed to foster a deeper connection with nature. This highly accessible space aims to promote biodiversity and sustainability through a multi-sensory experience. When the park opens in June, visitors will explore a sound zone, a lizard and butterfly garden, a sensory rope trail, and active nature play areas.
The park exemplifies the Cowper family’s original vision, which is that the Hummingbird brand is all about creating authentic and positive social impact.
*Source: Nielsen Scan sales, MAT data to 28/04/24