Lemonaid – More than just lemonade.

Lemonaid makes soft drinks how they should be, each bottle contains only the best organic ingredients and supports fair trade. It all started in 2008 when Jakob Berndt, Felix Langguth and Paul Bethke quit their day jobs and turned their vision into reality as Lemonaid and ChariTea. Each bottle contains only organic ingredients and is Fairtrade Certified. More is paid for the raw ingredients supporting dignified and fair farming. Through the Fairtrade premium, farmers can afford to make improvements to their own living conditions and implement community projects within their area. Lemonaid don’t operate through an invisible supply chain, they visit the farmers each year and get to understand their business, working conditions and challenges. Every bottle of Lemonaid sold goes to help people and communities help themselves. By focusing on parts of the world frequently disadvantaged in the global economy, Lemonaid help to support local initiatives which work to improve social, economic and ecological structures.

Lemonaid is proud to remain independent, not owned by one of the huge drinks conglomerates, this is something that won’t change! What’s more all Lemonaid is organic, Fairtrade and vegan!

Two organisations one vision

Sitting alongside Lemonaid is the Lemonaid & Charitea Foundation which gets 5% from every bottle purchased, in the last ten years more than £4,000,000 for the foundation. The aim of the Foundation was, and still is, to contribute to sustainable improvements in social, economic and ecological structures in regions that are often disadvantaged in the global economy. The foundation carries out projects with local partner organisations as the challenges can only be solved with the participation of local communities so the goal is to strengthen their resources.

The Lemonaid & ChariTea Foundation support a wide range or projects, currently 27, which all have one main goal: every person has access to independent, self-determined and sustainable livelihoods.
Countries where the foundation are active:

Just a few of the projects the Lemonaid & ChariTea Foundation are involved with

South Africa
Project focus areas: Agricultural development, education and (further) training, access to finance, income generation.

The Eastern Cape, situated as the name suggests on the beautiful eastern coast of South Africa, has historically been one of the most neglected provinces in South Africa and has been exploited as a labour pool for the mines in Johannesburg. South Africa is ranked as one of the most unequal countries in the world with the Eastern cape having a staggering 45% unemployment rate. Lemonaid & ChariTea Foundation supports Masilime Ngqo! (which means Let’s farm excellently!), the project aims to take advantage of the fertile land of this area which is has relatively little small scale farming. The Bulungula Incubator aims to create a centre for excellence in small-scale farming, combining the traditional knowledge of this very rural population with cutting-edge and innovative solutions to local problems. The focus for the next project period is to adjust to thechanging climate, to continue to show that farming can offer a reliable income, and to continue to find the most suitable methods and strategies for making farming in these parts of the country a viable option for attaining a sustainable livelihood.

Rwanda
Project focus areas: Agricultural development, access to finance, education & further training, entrepreneurship.

Rwanda is seen as a country in transition and is the subject of so many good news stories good news stories, Plastic bags have been succesfully banned, more than half of the seats in parliament are occupied by women and the GDP has experienced steady growth. Following the atrocities of the genocide of 1994, in which 800,000 people were murdered, these achievements are even more commendable. However, more than half of the population still lives below the poverty line, and only 14 percent of students complete secondary education. Uyisenga Ni Manzi’s (UNM) has this as one of it’s key focus areas promoting comprehensive psychosocial care post genocide and in the provision of education and health programmes and legal protection. Additionally, agricultural training programs serve as a basis for income generation and livelihood development. The Lemonaid & ChariTea foundation is supporting UNM with the TransFARMationproject. Here young farmers are empowered to become modern and successful agricultural entrepreneurs. The participants are encouraged to farm cash crops such as passionfruit as a supplement to their staple crops and to develop profitable links to local markets as a cooperative. UNM takes young adults and their ambitions seriously and is working hard to make agriculture a profitable income option for project participants.

Argentina
Project focus areas: Agricultural development, access to finance.

Whilst Argentina is a country with a vast amount of natural resources, agriculture and is endowed with extraordinarily fertile land, The cultivation of monocultures, especially of soy beans, and the linked deforestation, lead to erosion of the soil and consequently to the loss of agricultural land. Cedepo was founded in 1989 and has been active in education and the agricultural sector ever since, buying land abandoned by the state which nobody believed could be used. The founders wanted to show that this wasteland could be used for agricultural purposes against all the odds and be a leading example for the whole region. Today, 30 years later, this area is a real Garden of Eden with its own forest. Through applying agro-ecological principles they are able to harvest first-class vegetables all year round. The knowledge regarding the different harvest, cultivation and fertilisation methods is passed on to the local community. The organization helps local farmers to find the courage to cultivate following agro-ecological principles. Since 2017 Lemonaid & ChariTea Foundation has supported the work of Cedepo which provides small-scale farmers of the region with technical, organizational and commercial training, social economy and microcredit education and consultancy services.

For Fairtrade Fortnight 2020 we have 20% off the full range of Lemonaid and ChariTea drinks!