Associated Press
September 24, 2000
By Lisa Lipman

BOSTON (AP)--The nation's largest coffee sellers in the past have barely concerned themselves with the Third World farmers whose crops enabled their businesses to thrive. Now, however, they are waking up and smelling the coffee.

Starbucks, Green Mountain Coffee, Peet's Coffee and Tea, Dean's Beans, and 78 other gourmet coffee sellers have agreed to start a line of coffee purchased from farmers under "fair trade" regulations.

Those regulations include paying farmers at least $1.26 per pound regardless of how low the coffee market drops, and paying them 60 percent of the cost prior to shipment.

The companies have signed on through the efforts of Oxfam America, which fights poverty worldwide, and Transfair America, a nonprofit organization that promotes fairly traded food imports.

"We think that, one cup at a time, we can make an enormous difference in the communities that are the poorest in the world," said Barbara Fiorito, president of Oxfam's board of directors.

Coffee market prices are low, which means that coffee farmers from Third World countries often make only $3 a day selling their beans to companies that can make almost that much on one cup in the United States.

"It's not enough to live on, and a little too much to die on," said Rob Everts of wholesale coffee seller Equal Exchange, the first company to sign on.

Starbucks will start selling a line of fair trade coffee in 2,300 stores on Oct. 4. The coffee will sell for $11.45 a bag. Peet's has already started selling its own line of fair trade coffee for $10.95. Equal Exchange sells its coffee for $8.99. Equal Exchange is the only company at which 100 percent of the coffee meets fair trade standards.

Starbucks' Director of Environmental and Community Affairs Sue Mecklenburg said her company will sell the fair trade coffee for one year, then evaluate whether selling more than one kind of it is feasible.

"The fair trade movement is fairly new in the U.S. ... we're building this market as we speak," she said.

The gourmet coffee market has gotten increasingly crowded over the years. Americans spend $18 billion a year on coffee, more than any other nation. Coffee is the second most heavily traded commodity after oil. The two largest coffee importers Maxwell House and Folgers have not signed on to the fair trade agreement. Transfair executive director Paul Rice dismisses the idea that the companies are signing on more as a marketing ploy than as an altruistic inclination.

"Sure a lot of it may be lip service," he said. "But I see a lot of companies really trying to walk the walk."

Versions of this story appeared in the Chicago Tribune and the Houston Chronicle.

On the Web:

www.transfairusa.org
www.oxfamamerica.org
www.starbucks.com