Ensuring that ingredients are sourced in an eco-friendly and socially responsible manner is important to Guayaki Yerba Mate, an award-winning North American maker of invigorating organic drinks. Founded in 1997, Guayakí is the leading provider of organic, fairly-traded, rainforest-grown yerba mate in North America with products sold at thousands of natural foods stores, cafes and supermarkets.

When Guayaki learned about the non-profit Equilibrium Fund and its mission to support women in the impoverished Central American region where Maya Nut is sourced for the Java Mate beverages, Guayaki worked with the Fund on a project to purchase Maya Nut directly from a pioneering women's business in Ixlu Peten, Guatemala.

The Equilibrium Fund works to alleviate poverty, malnutrition and deforestation by teaching rural and indigenous women about nutritional uses and processing of Maya Nut. In Guatemala, where 49% of children under 5 years old are chronically malnourished, Maya Nut can serve as an excellent dietary source of protein, calcium, potassium, magnesium, zinc, iron, folate, fiber and antioxidant-rich vitamins A, B, C and E.

Also known as Breadnut or Ramon Nut, Maya Nut was the staple food for ancient civilizations in MesoAmerica. This tropical rainforest tree in the fig family, once abundant in Central America and Mexico, is endangered by logging and forest conversion for agriculture and biofuels.

"By teaching women to harvest Maya Nut from the natural rainforest for food and income, we motivate them to conserve the rainforest and plant more trees for future harvests," says Fund executive director Erika Vohman. Since 2001, communities trained by the Equilibrium Fund have planted more than 800,000 Maya Nut trees. "Sustainable Maya Nut harvesting within the rainforest is a robust, long-term economic alternative to the destructive land use practices which threaten the region, such as vast mono-crop plantations, clear cut logging and cattle grazing," says Vohman. 

Alimentos Nutri Nutrales, the business owned by the Ixlu women, recognizes that Maya Nut could be one of the world’s most profitable non-timber forest products. The business employs more than 650 people (80% women) from the community. "By producing and selling Maya Nut, women earn a fair wage, often for the first time in their lives," says Vohman.

"When Alimentos Nutri Nutrales approached companies that buy Maya Nut and requested that they explore importing it directly from them rather than the traditional system which depends on intermediaries who make major profits, Guayaki Yerba Mate was the only company to step up and accept the challenge to buy direct from rural women and they offered a very fair and competitive price," says Vohman.

In preparing a large shipment for export to Guayaki’s California warehouse, the women of Alimentos Nutri Nutrales broke through many deeply rooted social barriers. "This is the first time that a women's group in Central America has conducted this type of direct export business, so it is a historic event that is sure to inspire more women in this region and beyond," says Vohman.

When Maya Nut is dried and roasted, it tastes like chocolate and coffee and can be used to make cereal, cookies and cakes. Guayaki features Maya Nut in its unique Java Mate beverages because it is nutritious and imparts a rich, robust coffee-like flavor. Java Mate is a naturally caffeinated coffee alternative that brews in any standard coffee maker, French press or espresso machine.

This story is adapted from a press release on the CSR Wire entitled Guayaki Yerba Mate Establishes Historic Direct-Marketing Partnership with a Community-Based Women's Business in Guatemala, datelined Sebastopol, California, Oct. 22, 2008. The top photo, of the Alimentos Nutri Nutrales members, comes from the press release; the photograph at the bottom is from the Equilibrium Fund website.