Fair Trade Coffee

Fair trade coffee is coffee which is purchased directly from the growers for a higher price than standard coffee.  Fair trade coffee is one of many fair trade certified products available around the world.  The purpose of fair trade is to promote healthier working conditions and greater economic incentive for producers. Coffee farmers producing fair trade certified coffee are required to be part of a coop with other local growers.  The coops determine how the premiums from fair trade coffee will be spent. Growers are guaranteed a minimum price for the coffee, and if market prices exceed the minimum, they receive a per pound premium. Fair Trade coffee has become increasingly popular over the last 10 years, and is now offered at most places coffee is sold.

Many coffee vendors are now advertising Fair Trade certified coffee. This is most likely a result of increasing public awareness of Fair Trade, and increased pressure from consumers. Sam's Club, Wal Mart, Dunkin' Donuts, McDonald's, and Starbucks all offer Fair Trade certified coffee, as do most independent coffee shops. All espresso served at Dunkin' Donuts is Fair Trade certified, as is all coffee sold at McDonald's in England. Starbucks coffee is one of the largest purchasers of Fair Trade certified coffee in the world, planning to purchase 40 million pounds of green, unroasted coffee in 2009. This is in part because the company purchases massive quantities of coffee.

Fair Trade Logos

In 2008, Fair Trade certified coffee composed only 5% of the total coffee purchased by the company.

Though large scale coffee corporations are becoming figureheads for Fair Trade, smaller companies such as Just Coffee Cooperative, Higher Grounds, and Cafe Campesino are now working to successfully advocate Fair Trade coffee. Aside from word of mouth marketing, these small businesses are forming tour groups to various coffee producing countries, such as Guatemala and Mexico, to show consumers first hand what coffee farming with Fair Trade entails. These tours allow people to become ambassadors of Fair Trade and gain support for the movement. This type of marketing provokes a growth for popularity and demand. In 2006, nearly 65 million pounds of fair-trade coffee were imported to the U.S., 45% more than the year before, and twice as much as in 2004, according to TransFair USA, in Oakland, Calif., the only third-party certifier of fair-trade goods in the U.S. Trans Fair nearly doubles every year in applicants that want to certify their coffee products. This is because over the past ten years, the demand for Fair Trade coffee has increased significantly and will continue to grow.

Transnational corporations such as Procter & Gamble’s,  Folger's,  McDonald’s,  and  Starbuck’s now sell Fair Trade coffee, using their large consumer base and strong advertising campaigns to bring in Fair Trade consumers. Fair Trade activists are now concerned that the morally driven small Fair-Trade-oriented businesses are going to be pushed out of their original customer market.

When large corporations sell Fair Trade coffee, consumers are easily brought to the larger, well known companies for their Fair Trade coffee. This takes out the small coffee shops’ edge of selling consumer-oriented, special coffees like Fair Trade coffee and continues the success of big businesses in the coffee industry.

Generally, Fair Trade goods do not cost more than other goods because the large percentage taken by middlemen is removed from the equation. However, as a result of Fair Trade’s elimination of the middle man, numerous jobs are removed from the market without the guarantee of finding another. [source : Fair Trade Coffee]