When one of our co founders, Demetri Kyriazakos visited Africa for the first time in 2015 to attend a friend’s wedding, he and many of the guests visiting from Canada we’re taken on a four-day safari excursion in Tanzania. Being a lover of wild life and nature, Demetri was thrilled to be educated about the breathtaking landscapes he was exploring as well as the animals that inhabited them. Yet there was a dark side of the continent he learned about on that trip. While he got to see giraffes, hyenas, elephants, and even lions, there were a few animals he expected to see but did not get the chance to. Poaching, illegal wildlife trade, climate change and habitat loss threaten many of Mother Nature’s gracious species. These are issues that not only Africa faces, but our planet faces as a whole. Experiencing the continent that homes the birthplace of coffee (Ethiopia) along with its other rich and lush natural resources, Demetri felt the regions were getting the “short end of the stick” compared to the many that profit from it. Demetri was inspired to give back the only way he knew how – with roasted coffee since he and his family owned and operated a coffee roasting facility in Toronto, Canada founded by his late father. Demetri decided to partner with his like-minded friend Menelaos Anastasakos – a fellow nature and animal lover in order to bring this concept to reality. They created Wyld Coffee in order to help tackle some of the issues our planet faces.