Sebastopol’s Guayaki reaches into Guatemala

SEBASTOPOL – Herbal-drink-maker Guayaki Yerba Mate has begun importing directly from a small women-owned supplier in Guatemala as it pursues its goals of producing natural foods and preventing further rainforest deforestation.

With popularity soaring for its flavored, mate-based herbal drinks – sales jumped from $5 million in 2006 to $10 million last year – Guayaki can afford to push its agenda of giving people in South and Central America an economic incentive to preserve and replant rainforests.

“Besides providing a market for rain-forest products like mate, we give gleaners and growers the assurance that what they’re doing is right, that there’s a consumer market for the fruits of their labor and that they’ll be compensated on a regular and dependable basis,” said Guayaki CEO Chris Mann.

Maya nuts are used as a chocolate-coffee flavoring agent in some of its Mate Java product. When a new source became available directly from a women-owned business in Guatemala, Guayaki jumped at the chance, although direct exporting had never been tried before.

A small company called Alimentos Nutri Nutrales was brought to Guayaki’s attention by the Equilibrium Fund, a nonprofit dedicated to alleviating poverty, malnutrition and deforestation.

The women in the company were planting and selling green Maya nuts, once a common source of nutrition throughout the Mayan region of Mexico and Guatemala, and only now coming back in favor for their coffee-like aroma and flavor and their food value.

But the women didn’t know how to roast the nuts, which would double their value, or how to deal with the complexities of exporting them, so middlemen reaped most of the profits, according to Equilibrium Executive Director Erika Vohman.

“When Alimentos approached companies that buy the Maya nuts and suggested that they explore importing it directly from them rather than traditional intermediaries, only Guayaki accepted the challenge,” said Ms. Vohman.

Her group, whose function is mostly training, taught the women how to roast the nuts and led them through the government formalities of foreign export.

The women learned to perform all the arrangements necessary to prepare a large shipment to Guayaki’s warehouse in California, and doing so they broke through many deeply rooted social barriers, she said.

“We’ve been in contact with them,” said Mr. Mann. “They’re so excited to learn that it’s possible, that they can develop a product and sell it abroad by themselves.”

By U.S. standards, the amount of product is miniscule. Guayaki, which just received its first shipment, intends to import about five tons this year.

“We’ve put new emphasis on marketing our Java Mate, and we’re launching it in some of our national chains. We hope to build the volume of Maya nuts we import and encourage more planting of Maya nut trees, which used to comprise about 20 percent of the rainforest in that region, said Mr. Mann. Java Mate won’t be bottled at this point. Last year Guayaki launched its first line of ready-to-drink, flavored mate products. They’re in major markets and convenience stores, finding wide consumer acceptance, he said.

Most of the 30-employee company’s products are marketed in tea bags, packaged by Traditional Medicinals in Sebastopol, or loose. Last month Guayaki introduced new biodegradable, compostable packaging for its loose products.

“Our goal is to deal only in organic, fairly traded products that put a halt to forest destruction as they gain consumer acceptance,” said Mr. Mann. “We call it market-driven restoration.’”

For more information, visit www

.guayaki.com.