Living income and living wage

Living incomes play an important role in building resilient communities and make a positive contribution to a regenerative food system.

Living income defines the net income a household needs to earn in order to enable all members of the household to afford a dignified and decent standard of living, including basic needs (food, water, housing, education, health care, transportation, clothing, other essential needs and a provision for unexpected events).

With living income identified as one of our ten human rights salient issues (pdf, 14Mb), we have worked with the non-profit Sustainable Food Lab to create an action plan which focuses on our cocoa, coffee and dairy supply chains. We will report on its implementation in 2025. We address living wages (pdf, 1Mb) for our employees in a separate action plan.

We have developed strategies that aim to improve the livelihoods of farming families in selected supply chains (cocoa, coffee and dairy), by helping them close the living income gap and become more resilient and enabled to invest in regenerative agricultural practices that will be more appealing to the next generation of farmers.

Empowering farmers and their communities

Through both the Nescafé Plan and Nestlé Cocoa Plan, we implement initiatives that help coffee and cocoa farmers to improve crop yields and implement regenerative agriculture practices.

Our key achievements

• Since 2023, we have been reporting on the income accelerator program via our annual progress reports – read our latest Progress Report 2025 (pdf, 800Kb).
• Income diversification (including intercropping) has been integrated into our Nescafé Plan, promoting the planting of crops other than coffee to enable new income streams, and improve overall soil health and biodiversity.

Our income accelerator program aims to improve the livelihoods of cocoa-farming families

It rewards cocoa farming families not just for the quantity and quality of their cocoa beans, but also for practices that benefit the environment and local community. The program's approach aims to deliver a long-lasting impact by incentivizing the enrolment of children in school while advancing regenerative agriculture practices and gender equality. The program rewards practices that increase crop productivity and help secure additional sources of income, which aim to help close the gap in living income and help protect children.

Following a successful pilot phase, the income accelerator program has been expanded to involve 30 000 cocoa-farming families in Côte d'Ivoire. This 'test at scale' phase will build on initial positive results: school enrolment rates have risen, pruning has increased the productivity of cocoa farms and women have been empowered and more involved in decision-making, which has improved the allocation of family resources.

The income accelerator program expanded to Ghana in 2024 and aims to reach 160 000 cocoa-growing families globally by 2030. More details can be found in our income accelerator program progress report (pdf, 800Kb).

Helping to address the living income gap in coffee-growing communities

The Nescafé Plan (pdf, 9Mb) was launched in 2010 as the brand's global sustainability initiative. In 2022, the Nescafé Plan announced a pilot financial support scheme in Mexico, Côte d'Ivoire and Indonesia to help farmers accelerate the transition to regenerative agriculture.

Activities include: 

• Conditional cash incentives for adopting regenerative agriculture practices
• Income protection using weather insurance
• Tailored technical assistance including intercropping for income diversification

Building farmer resilience and supporting progress towards a living income in Indonesia

In Indonesia, the RegenTa initiative (pdf, 2Mb), which is part of the Nescafé Plan, is helping farmers to adopt regenerative agriculture practices that make their farms more resilient to droughts and flooding. The measures also improve soil fertility which helps enhances farmers income and livelihoods overall.

By planting crops such as chili, java long chili, pepper, and avocado trees alongside coffee trees, farmers can optimize the use of their land, and help to prevent pests and diseases from spreading. The cash crops also provide additional income throughout the year. So far, the RegenTa program has reached more than 2 000 farmers, offering both technical and financial assistance to apply regenerative agriculture in ways that suit local conditions.

Supporting innovation and entrepreneurship

Better farming practices can improve crop yields. For example, pruning can improve the health and disease resistance of cocoa crops, resulting in a three- to four-fold increase in yield. Meanwhile, the Nescafé Plan has been distributing more climate-resistant and higher-yielding coffee plantlets to farmers. The plan provides special coaching for farmers – including female farmers – to cultivate entrepreneurship. 

We are also helping farmers access capital to invest in their businesses where needed, such as through co-investment in regenerative agriculture, or Village Savings and Loans Associations. For several years we have encouraged farming families to diversify their incomes, including by growing other crops or raising livestock. This helps to mitigate their exposure to market volatility, crop disease or drought and improves cashflow between harvests of their main crop. We monitor our progress – in farming economics, social improvements and environmental benefits – in partnership with the Rainforest Alliance.

A living wage for all Nestlé employees

Since 2013, Nestlé has been implementing a Living Wage Program to ensure that all our employees, including those on temporary contracts, earn a living wage. We work with our partner Business for Social Responsibility (BSR) to help us define the living wage threshold in each country where we operate. We use this information to identify and address cases where our lowest level of compensation and legal minimum wages are not sufficient for workers to fulfill basic needs. These figures are updated on a regular basis to ensure that our employees continue to be paid at or above the living wage.

In the UK, Nestlé was the first major manufacturer back in 2014 to pledge the living wage to all its employees and in 2017 extended the commitment to cover all contractors across all its sites.

Our key achievements

• We have adopted a new living wage framework (i.e. wage indicator) which has been recognized by the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH)
• We have participated in several consultations organized by the International Labour Organization (ILO) on how to operationalize living wages as part of the Global Coalition for Social Justice