Alan Mahon of Brewgooder discusses their new fonio beer and working with Terra Ingredients to create the first Fairtrade Certified fonio supply chain
On World Water Day in 2016, Alan Mahon and friend James Hughes launched their crowdfunded beer brand, Brewgooder, with a much larger goal than simply making great beer. In addition to producing quality ales, they wanted to brew a fairer world for everyone with every pint of Brewgooder consumed. Within its first three months, Brewgooder sold enough beer to supply consistent clean water access to a rural village of over 5,000 people in Chiluzi, Malawi, the first of their community projects focused on water.
By 2018, Brewgooder had already developed a loyal following in the UK, and their beer was being stocked nationwide by one of the world’s largest ethical retailers in Co-op. However, despite the rapid growth and abundance of opportunities that lie ahead, they could not have foreseen that this mission would lead them to an even grander cause—and a tiny ancient grain in West Africa called fonio.
Discovering Fonio & Brooklyn Brewery Collaboration
In 2019, through an introduction to Garrett Oliver, brewmaster at Brooklyn Brewery, Mahon first became aware of fonio and its potential use in beer products. During their initial conversations, Oliver proposed that Brewgooder try to find a way to incorporate fonio into their brewing process. “At that time, I didn’t see an opportunity for a fonio beer collaboration. It was my first exposure to the grain, and it took me three years to work out how we could use it,” says Mahon.
Eventually, Mahon circled back to the team at Brooklyn Brewery in 2022 to see if they were still interested in a fonio beer. Brewgooder felt they could put a fonio beer into a large enough distribution to test the market and the two sides agreed to collaborate on a Fonio Session IPA, one of the fastest-growing beer styles in the UK craft beer market. “We felt that if we were going to try and introduce a new grain into the brewing industry, why not get into the slipstream of that?” says Mahon.
Once a beer style was chosen, Brewgooder faced the challenge of sourcing enough fonio for their first brew. Although fonio has been around for thousands of years in West Africa, the grain is still largely unknown outside of the Sahel region where it is grown. “There’s a funny story from when we were trying to secure enough fonio grain for our first brew since the fonio supply chain was so underdeveloped in the UK. If our initial five tons of fonio didn’t arrive on time, as a backup, I was trying to have at least our initial brew covered by grain already in the UK,” explains Mahon. “In total, I think I sourced 100 kilograms of fonio from four different places, and that was it. There was no more in the supply chain, so my lack of knowledge as a consumer was backed up by the fact that this thing (fonio) was so hard to get.” Although sourcing the grain turned out to be much more complex than Mahon anticipated, the reasons why fonio is not widely available in the West also make it a unique ingredient for brewing beer.
“We noticed that with how fine a grain fonio is, it completely dissolves in the boil. It gives off all its sugar and everything else into the mash,” explains Mahon. “I think the best way to describe that effect on the mouthfeel, for instance, is similar to chia seeds. When chia seeds are soaked in a liquid or yogurt, for example, they effectively burst open and have this gelatinous, bubble-wrapped aspect to it. Fonio offers this fuller mouthfeel that you probably can only achieve with maltodextrin or other craft beer additions, which makes it extremely refreshing,” he continues. “Overall, it’s a really pleasant and differentiated drinking experience, even within the category of Session IPAs.” Mahon also noted that fonio significantly impacts the flavor of the beer it produces, adding hints of cherry and lychee to its profile. Since fonio is not malted like barley and gives off all of its sugars, it presents a higher sweetness like that of a cherry or Gewürztraminer wine.
Designed by Brewgooder’s brewmaster and developed with Oliver at Brooklyn Brewery, the Brewgooder x Brooklyn: Fonio Session IPA was launched in May of 2023—and to great success. Brewgooder found that in addition to offering a unique taste experience for adventurous drinkers, consumers also praised the overall quality of the beer. Equally important was the fact that by using a grain such as fonio that comes from largely underdeveloped economies in West Africa, fonio farmers were able to receive an immediate and direct economic boost from their efforts. It was the latter aspect of this beer that excited Mahon and Hughes the most, as it could allow Brewgooder to have an even bigger impact on the people they initially set out to help.
Sourcing Fonio & Fair Trade Certification
When speaking to the difficulties of integrating fonio into the brewing process, Mahon says there weren’t any that came to mind. “It was really just that a Fairtrade fonio supply chain did not exist when we first started, which was one of our requirements for the project,” he explains. The Fairtrade element is especially important to Brewgooder for the fonio project because it can impact the communities it seeks to help at the beginning of the brewing process instead of after its products have sold.
By purchasing fonio directly from producers in food-insecure regions in West Africa at the above-fair-market-rate that Fairtrade Certified goods require, Brewgooder can create even more opportunities for these farmers and their communities beyond helping supply clean water. “In effect, we’re flipping our original value chain on its head—where the people who would have been considered potential beneficiaries, or in the countries that would have been potential beneficiaries, are now turned into our suppliers. Essentially, they get to eat first instead of drink last,” explains Mahon.
In this scenario, the additional funds that fonio farmers earn by selling Fairtrade Certified grain can be used for clean water, infrastructure, school fees for children, and investments in farming technology for a crop that has traditionally been very difficult to harvest and process. It was the perfect opportunity for Brewgooder to expand on its mission and have an even more significant impact while also facilitating a new, fun drinking experience for its audience. However, the reality of a Fairtrade fonio supply chain not yet existing was a hurdle that Brewgooder would need help to clear.
Terra Ingredients & Fairtrade Fonio Supply Chain
Sourcing a grain such as fonio presented a multitude of challenges for Brewgooder, and the fact that it had to be Fairtrade Certified further added to these challenges. Not only is fonio largely unknown by Western consumers, it is also challenging to process after harvesting due to its small size. The difficulty of processing fonio ultimately makes it a more expensive grain. Additionally, since there was no existing Fairtrade Certified supply chain, one would need to be created in a relatively short period to meet Brewgooder’s ambitious launch date of mid-2024 for the Fonio Session IPA.
After an extensive search to find a partner that could help source enough Fairtrade fonio for Brewgooder’s beer, Mahon was introduced to Malick Diedhiou of Terra Ingredients in the latter half of 2023. “We kissed a lot of frogs before we found Malick (Terra), to be honest. And when we approached the team at Terra, we told them that we need fonio, but we weren’t going to buy it from them unless it was Fairtrade Certified,” explains Mahon. “Then, Malick basically said that they had already been exploring Fairtrade certification for fonio, but they had nobody to sell it to.” It appeared that Brewgooder had found the perfect partner in Terra Ingredients, but many challenges still had to be addressed before a Fairtrade fonio supply chain could become a reality.
Before their introduction, Diedhiou had already been building connections with a local fonio farmer co-op in the West African country of Guinea to expand Terra Ingredients’ fonio supply chain and eventually become Fairtrade Certified. Once Brewgooder came along, Terra’s need for a Fairtrade certification was rapidly accelerated and would require cooperation from multiple entities to pull it off quickly. This process included not only Brewgooder and Terra Ingredients, but also the Guinea fonio farmer co-op led by Osman Diallo (co-founder of the Fonio Fairtrade initiative) and Maimouna Diallo (President of the farmer co-op), FLOCERT Africa, and Fairtrade Africa.
It was an arduous effort to organize so many different groups in an attempt to get them all certified at essentially the same time, but together they were able to come together and make it happen. “By March (2024), Terra and the farmer co-op essentially had fully developed the Fairtrade supply chain for fonio, which even the Fairtrade Foundation didn’t think was possible. It was kind of a serendipitous moment where we effectively all became Fairtrade Certified simultaneously, which is fantastic,” says Mahon. Within six months, Brewgooder, Terra Ingredients, and the Guinea farmer co-op achieved their goal despite facing many logistical challenges that were largely outside their control.
“Reflecting on it, I think, ‘Wow, how did we do that? How did all those things all line up in a positive way?’ If there’s ever a book written about Brewgooder, which I’m sure there won’t be, the chapter on fonio would be compelling because it’s fraught with danger.” Expanding on his last point, Mahon referenced the real-world perils that Guinea was facing while the Fairtrade Certification was going on. At that time, the Foreign Office in Britain had advised British citizens not to go into Guinea following a jailbreak of a former president and the tragic explosion in the Guinea oil port at the end of 2023, further complicating the certification process. These events also were reminders of what the people living in Guinea face on a daily basis, adding another element to the impact that Brewgooder hopes to have through its mission.
“If there’s a commercial opportunity for us, from a value standpoint and an ethical point of view, there has to also be the commensurate upside for the farmers producing fonio,” explains Mahon. According to The Heritage Foundation, Guinea suffers from a “mostly unfree” economy, making Fairtrade Certification even more important for protecting the livelihoods of fonio producers in the country. “We don’t want to exploit that arbitrage of, ‘we can buy this (fonio) and sell it, but it’s up to the farmers to ask for more money,’” adds Mahon. “We wanted to pay above the market rate, and with Terra Ingredients, Malick in particular, he has essentially been an extended member of our team in this process. He’s felt like a fellow traveler on the journey, and I really don’t think we could have done it without him.”
The other critical element in the process was having the right people on the ground, giving everyone firsthand updates, and coordinating directly with FLOCERT and the Fairtrade Foundation from inside the country. “Osman has also been brilliant in liaising with Maimouna on the ground, who’s also been great,” continues Mahon. “Recently, they shared a list of the farmers with us by name and by acreage, and it’s just remarkable because we were previously buying fonio in quite a scattergun fashion. I didn’t like that because I didn’t want to build our fonio beer product up and somehow find out something nefarious was happening at some stage in the supply chain. It was really important for us to start with those principles, with Terra and everyone else being amazing partners in establishing that.”
Pulling Off the Near-Impossible
When the day came for all of the parties involved to find out if they had received the Fairtrade Certification, Mahon was on a family vacation in Madrid. He couldn’t help but feel anxious and stressed about the impending decision, with the Brewgooder team, Diedhiou, and Osman joining a conference call while Mahon sat in an airport with his family. After a moment of silence, Mahon begged someone to speak and give him the bad news, but Osman delightfully told the group that they got it.
“That call set me up for a great holiday, and it felt like a cool process to be a part of, but also something super, super, super stressful,” explains Mahon. “It felt like six months of stress, because we already had British Airways agree to put this beer on their planes, we had retailers ready to buy it, and we were effectively saying we could develop this supply chain in time for our launch. We had the belief that anything is possible, but then you’re thinking, what if this doesn’t happen? We might be in trouble. But if there’s a god up there, he’s a Brewgooder drinker, and he was rooting for us.”
Mahon also acknowledged that this entire project was a great example of what can be accomplished when everybody involved shares the same vision and values. “Malick and the Terra team, Osman, Maimouna and the farmer co-op, and our Brewgooder team wanted to prove that we could make it happen—and for all the right reasons. Then, I think people go the extra mile for you, including the FLOCERT and Fairtrade teams,” he adds. “It almost felt like they were accommodating this grand scheme trying to improve the world. Once you’ve got that, it unlocks a lot of goodwill and momentum from the universe, making it all come together.”
Introducing the Fonio Session IPA
With a Fairtrade Certified fonio supply chain now in place, Brewgooder is able to access the necessary grain for their new beer in a way that is aligned with their overall mission. Mahon and the entire team at Brewgooder believe that the Fonio Session IPA provides a resounding “yes” to the question of: Can they harness the power of beer in a positive direction and make it empowering for both the producers and the consumers? “For me, it’s been this project above all that has me saying, ‘Yeah, we’ll still focus on profitability, still invest in projects at home and abroad through the revenue generated, but let’s also make the beer itself stand for something close to our values,” explains Mahon.
The challenge now for Brewgooder is the same challenge that Terra Ingredients, food brands, restaurateurs, and other manufacturers trying to promote fonio are facing: Western audiences still don’t fully understand what it is. For this reason, Brewgooder simply named the beer “Fonio” because it sounds fun and different while putting the beer’s heart on its sleeve and embracing its uniqueness. However, with an abundance of options for beer drinkers in the UK, being unique isn’t enough these days; the beer also has to be of high quality to truly stand out—which Mahon and company believe they have done with the Fonio Session IPA.
“Compared to the leading two beers by volume in this category, I think we’re better than them. If you blind tasted it, you would say there’s something distinct and better about ours, no question,” proclaims Mahon. “What I think is even more important is that it takes a category (Session IPA) that is quite similar across the board—there are only so many 4.3% Session IPAs you can get excited about—and brings something different to it in terms of ingredients and the story behind it.” Mahon adds that the Fonio Session IPA is the only Fairtrade fonio beer available nationally, if not the world, allowing the consumer to enjoy drinking a beer while positively impacting others. “That’s what sets this beer apart, for me. It has that stamp from the Fairtrade Foundation, which says that everything has been done to ensure that the people who grew this have the opportunity to have a better life.”
Looking toward the future of fonio beer, Brewgooder hopes that more breweries can participate in the Fairtrade fonio supply chain and create their own fonio beers, as they have no intention of keeping it to themselves. Mahon hopes other brewers can integrate fonio in a way that joins in on what Brewgooder has started. “That’s the name of the game: Can we prove that it’s commercially viable and successful? If we can, that probably is an indicator of quality, taste, and many other aspects of the beer,” he explains. “If other people can replicate that, it’s happy days.”
Where Can You Buy Fonio Session IPA?
UK consumers can find Brewgooder’s Fonio Session IPA at Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, the Co-op, and British Airways.
