It all began in 1979 with the establishment of the NESCAFÉ plant in Lampung, the country’s coffee producing centre. While Nestlé wants to tap into local resources as much as possible, quality is never compromised. This applies to all Nestlé products, including NESCAFÉ.

Hence, in 1985 Nestlé started applying pre-shipment quality control procedures in the Lampung plant to ensure the consistency of taste that is crucial to NESCAFÉ. This raised the coffee growers’ quality awareness and consequently the quality of their coffee.

Some years later, in 1994 to be precise, Nestlé Agricultural Services started offering technical assistance packages to the growers based on an integrated agricultural services program. This included crop management improvements, training, ‘quality awareness’ development, and marketing solutions through price transparency.
Starting with a pilot project in Ngarip sub-district, Ulu Belu district, Tanggamus regency, the program produced a good deal of progress in a relatively short period. The term  “Nestlé quality”, which refers to better quality beans in the coffee market in Lampung, demonstrates that both the producers and the market now have a higher appreciation of quality than before. More importantly, all of this has strengthened the bargaining position of the growers, and thus they enjoy better prices for their produce. This, in turn, will have a positive effect on their incomes.