Civet coffee that is produced from coffee beans which have been partially digested and excreted by caged civets, will no longer be given official certification by UTZ Certified. This form of certification is a guarantee of a certain standard of responsible coffee, cocoa, tea and rooibos farming.
The civet coffee process is said to improve the coffee as, when they graze, the civets select coffee berries containing better beans, while their digestive mechanisms improve the flavour of the beans that have been eaten. However, to capitalise on the demand for this expensive coffee (£186 per pound) civets are often captured in the wild and kept caged in filthy, appalling conditions.
The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA), which has been campaigning against caged-civet coffee and has worked with the BBC on a special investigation (watch film here), welcomed the news.
Martin Cooke, International Head of Corporate Engagement at WSPA, said: “We applaud UTZ Certified for recognising that capturing animals from the wild and keeping them in cramped cages, just to create a novelty ‘luxury’ drink, simply must stop. We now want other certification standards to follow UTZ’s lead and to take a zero tolerance position on caged production methods. We want a certification scheme for wild, cage-free civet coffee, so that both retailers and consumers can easily spot genuine, wild-sourced, animal friendly products.”
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