How does your work help to shape the world of tomorrow?
I work at The Village Coffee & Music as manager of the Science Park location. The Village opened a new coffee bar over a year ago, and I’m responsible for its everyday running. In addition to quality, purchasing, sales, training and getting new employees up to speed, it’s vital that we maintain a welcoming atmosphere.
At a location like the Utrecht Science Park, it’s good to be able to escape and discover new energy or work in a new and refreshing environment. You can meet people from different backgrounds and nationalities and work together with them. You can devise exciting new ideas together or just relax with a cup of coffee and the feeling that you’re in your own living room. Familiar surroundings and activities help clear your mind and boost your creativity. It certainly won’t be the first time that a relaxed cuppa will have given birth to innovative ideas. A huge number of exciting collaborations, festivals and start-ups originated right here in The Village. We’re renowned as a fountain of ideas!
What does your work contribute to society? How does it impact me?
After nearly a decade in the coffee industry, I have seen and tasted coffee from nearly every coffee-producing nation in the world. Coffee is one of the most traded products in the world and it’s of huge economic and political importance. After crude oil, coffee is seen as the most valuable export product for developing countries. Climate change has a major impact on coffee-producing countries, and coffee production has a major impact on the climate.
The huge demand for cheap coffee makes it practically impossible for many coffee farmers to continue producing coffee. It becomes a vicious circle once farmers are either forced to produce cheap coffee or use their land for other purposes, such as growing pineapples. As we drink more coffee than pineapple juice in the Netherlands – approximately 150 litres per person per year – we can make a significant impact by choosing to drink high-quality coffee.
High-quality coffee means the farmers are paid a good price, enabling them to invest in their business. This means they can cut out the use of chemical agents and conduct better irrigation to prevent environmental damage. This is often done in connection with quality marks, although a quality mark does not necessarily guarantee quality. Quality is reflected by information, and in the coffee trade, quality can be ensured by transparency: from the planting of the coffee beans to the end product in your cup.
At The Village, we roast the coffee ourselves. We know exactly where our coffee comes from, when it was harvested and its degree of roast. We want to ensure the highest possible quality, not only for the single-origin coffees, but also for our blends.
We also do all we can to use responsible and local products such as fresh milk, biodegradable cups, chocolate and tea. We bake all of the cakes and biscuits in our bakery, and we sell coffee beans and tools that will help you make the best coffee at home or at work.
What is your dream? What do you want to achieve in the next 5–10 years?
When I’m not at the coffee bar, I’m usually on my drum kit. I play in two bands with which I tour Europe, as well as further afield, such as Canada. Naturally, this goes hand in hand with the topic of dreams. From a very early age, bringing people together has been important to me: to create unity, awareness and awakening without shoving it down people’s throats. Music, the universal language, is the perfect medium for this. As the name suggests, at The Village Coffee & Music, we really love music. The volume is usually turned up quite loud, we organise festivals and/or serve coffee at them, we host band evenings at Ekko, we support touring artists and we sell bags of coffee bearing download codes for their albums.
Personally, I believe in steady growth and seizing every opportunity you encounter or create. What I do clearly shows that I take my own future seriously, as well as the future of the environment and that of other people. However, I don’t set myself goals like ‘in x years I want to achieve y’. In my life, I’ve achieved more by simply living in the moment. Considering the way society is developing at the moment, I hope that in five to ten years, I can still live my life this way.
Address
Utrecht Science Park Foundation
Heidelberglaan 11
3584 CS Utrecht
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E-mail
info@utrechtsciencepark.nl
Phone
+31 30 800 4499
KvK
56652488
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