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Starbucks and TransFair USA host online dialogue about sustainability of Fair Trade coffee
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Starbucks offers Fairtrade coffee in London
Photo by kafka4prez on Flickr under a
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In honor of October as Fair Trade Month in the U.S., Starbucks Coffee Company and TransFair USA will host a live online conversation on Monday, October 12 to discuss the meaning of "Being Fair". And they invite you to join in the dialogue.
This is the first time the specialty coffee company and Fair Trade organization will come together for a live streaming Question & Answer session. If you are interested in participating, you will need to submit your question ahead of time via Facebook or Twitter. That's right...another exciting use of social media. Here are the details:
Submit a Question on Facebook
- Become a fan of Fair Trade Certified & Starbucks on Facebook: (www.facebook.com/fairtradecertified)(www.facebook.com/starbucks)
- Leave a wall post on either fan page that begins with “Q&A:”
Submit a Question on Twitter
- Follow Fair Trade Certified & Starbucks on Twitter: (www.twitter.com/fairtradeusa) (www.twitter.com/starbucks)
- Use the #beingfair hashtag to submit questions directly to the USTREAM channel
WHO: Dub Hay, SVP, Coffee & Tea, Starbucks Coffee Company
Paul Rice, CEO, TransFair USA
WHEN: Monday, October 12, 2009 – 11:00 a.m. PDT
WHERE: www.ustream.tv/channel/fair-trade-certified
Starbucks has been purchasing Fair Trade Certified Coffee for more than ten years. Last year, the coffee company committed to doubling its Fair Trade purchases from 20 million pounds to 40 million pounds and included Fair Trade as a component of its Shared Planet platform. Sounds like Starbucks is investing quite a bit in the certification program.
It is curious that the online conversation is occuring a week after the piece in TIME - "Fair Trade: What Price for Good Coffee?" - questioning the sustainability of the Fair Trade movement. According to the article, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in Vermont commissioned a survey to determine the on-the-ground benefits of Fair Trade for coffee farmers. "When I got the results, I was shocked," Rick Peyser, director of social advocacy for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters told TIME. "I was ready to quit."
The survey was given to 179 Fair Trade coffee farmers in Central America and Mexico last year. TIME obtained a copy and discovered that more than half said their families are still been going hungry for several months out of the year. How is that possible? What consumers do not realize is the cost per pound goes to the Fair Trade cooperative and sometimes very little trickles down to the actual farmers. TransFair USA has been criticized in the past for their lack of transparency on the ground. An except from TIME states,
Fair Trade pays $1.55 per lb. for (Luis) Antonio's organic coffee, almost 10% more than the market price. But Antonio is left with only 50¢ per lb. after paying Fair Trade cooperative fees, government taxes and farming expenses. By year's end, he says, from the few thousand pounds he grows, he'll pocket about $1,000 — around half the meager minimum wage in Guatemala — or $2.75 a day"
It will be interesting to see if the transparency issue will come up during the online conversation, and more importantly, how Starbucks and TransFair USA will answer the question.
Trivia question: Who is the largest purchaser of Fair Trade Certified Coffee in the world?
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