Conscious Choice Seattle: Letters to the Editor

February 2004 | Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor

More Grounds for Fair Trade Debate

Thank you for your article about fair trade coffee in the January issue of Evergreen Monthly. As representative of Equal Exchange, a company that tries to raise the ethical bar in the coffee industry, we appreciate your shining a light on the issue.

In that vein, I just wanted to add a few thoughts:

You rightly point out only about 1 percent of Starbucks coffee is fair trade, and that combined they purchased about 3.4 million pounds of fair trade, shade and organic coffee in 2002. I would add that even 3.4 million pounds is still only about 2 percent of Starbucks’ yearly total (which at 1 percent of world production equals 155 million pounds.).

Granted, as you wrote, this past year’s numbers will turn out “significantly more” for Starbucks. I should hope so since the company introduced organic/shade coffees four years ago, and fair trade coffee three-plus years ago. Yet these products still constitute a negligible portion of their company’s imports.

You might want to re-consider the statement . . .Proctor & Gamble [which recently made a significant commitment to fair-trade in its Millstone line]. What P&G has done to my knowledge might not constitute a significant commitment.

True, P& G has added a single fair trade coffee to the 49-plus coffees already offered by Millstone, and they will offer it to food service accounts. But conversely the company has neither committed to buying a specific volume of fair trade coffee nor to converting any set percentage of their imports, not even 1 percent, to fair trade.

As a result of this underwhelming news we at Equal Exchange are worried that P&G might make far less of an impact than we all hoped. Therefore, we have publicly challenged P&G to try to keep up with our little worker co-op in the fair trade market in 2004. If they can match our fair trade sales, pound for pound, we’ll donate $25,000 to one of our farmer co-op partners.

Rodney North
Equal Exchange, Canton, Mass.

Fair Amount of Research

The January issue of Evergreen Monthly was a rewarding read to be sure. After thinking about the Starbucks article (“Fair Enough?), I decided I would do some research.

I Hate Starbucks is a message board where people complain, which is similar to Slaveway. Once I read a couple of posts at I Hate Starbucks I realized I had found one of the darkest corners of the Internet. I was expecting numerous articles about fair trade but instead found posts by individuals whining about not having change for a fifty-dollar bill and lids not being on tight enough.

In Münster, Germany, where my in-laws reside nearby, they operate a small café at the outskirts of the city center. They have worked all their lives baking and brewing and have nothing to show for the endeavor. Starbucks has come to town.

It seems that a sort of virus, similar to the intrusion of patented seed onto non-contracted farms (“Blowin’ in the Wind”, Jan. 2004), is spreading not just into the business world, but the world of culture.

I am going to talk about this to everyone I know. Get the word out. We can do something about all this by demanding products that meet our standards.
Consider patronizing your local coffee house and buy fair trade products, before they are gone.

Berry Sizemore, Internet

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