Our Story
Hi there, we are Hanne and David, the founders of Lassgård Kaffe, a company all about sustainability and equality in the coffee industry. This is our story about how we found a unique coffee farm in the Colombian Andes while we were searching for Davids biological family.
2017 - Our First Trip Back To Medellin.
In 2017 we traveled to Medellin searching for David's biological parents. David was adopted from Medellin, Colombia, to Gothenburg, Sweden at the age of 2. This was going to be the first time he came back to his home country and his birth city since 1983.
A Harsh Coffee Reality
We had some leads on where to start searching but it came to a dead end and we needed to take a break from everything and decided to go on a coffee tour to a farm in the Colombian Andes.
There we met the Acevedo family that has been in the coffee industry for five generations, 100-years. They told the story about the harsh reality for coffee farmers:
- How Western exploitation has impacted coffee farmers, leading to issues like modern slavery and poverty.
The Acevedos had decided to change the way the coffee industry works and give workers good pay, pension, health insurance and produce their own roasted specialty coffee to sell and set their own price on. And their coffee was the best coffee we had ever tasted…
2021 - Pandemic Life.
Back in Sweden, our first son arrived and life continued, but our thoughts always kept coming back to that experience up in the mountains, and the amazing coffee.
After the pandemic hit, life slowed down in the world, Hanne was on parental leave with their second son and David couldn't travel for work anymore. We started thinking more and more about that coffee in Colombia.- "Maybe we could find out to see if the coffee farm can export coffee to Sweden? "
We still had the number to the farm and after a Skype meeting we decided that the European people needed to try this unique coffee fulfilling 15 climate goals!
E - Commerce & Media
We decided to use our famous last name "Lassgard” in the brand name,' (Hannes dad is one of Scandinavias most known and praised actors) and we started having coffee tastings with friends and family. After noticing that people really enjoyed the coffee, the story of coffee and learning about coffee David decided to build an E-Commerce by himself.
A 2 - Man & Woman show.
Between the years of 2021 - 2022 we did everything by ourselves , packaging the coffee, putting stamps, coffee tastings, selling, e-commerce, social media and delivering coffee. The coffee was sold directly to consumers, big supermarkets, flowershops, restaurants, cinemas and unique lifestyle stores all over Sweden.
2022 - Moving to Colombia!
In 2022 we started talking more about how we wanted to be closer to coffee production - to really make a change in the industry. But to do so we had to leave everything in Sweden and move back to David's birth country. After some consideration we decided to take the leap, maybe for six months or maybe longer? Two weeks after the move to Medellin, Sweden had a shift in their political government and we felt no freedom there anymore as an interracial couple. We knew that the move to Medellin was the right decision for us.
Medellin - 2024.
Along the way, we found a group of very talented people from Medellin and together we have one mission:
To make a change in the coffee industry and to bring You the most sustainable and most delicious coffee in the world!