Fair Trade News

April 15th, 2007 | Courier-Post
Fair Trade, Fair Share

Each morning, Rod Moyer starts his day with a cup of coffee.

The farmer in Africa who produced the beans in a fair-trade cooperative earned a premium for her crop, money she and other farmers pooled to educate their children and maintain the land.

Moyer believes fair-trade coffee opens his eyes to more than a new day.

"Fair trade has meaning to me as a consumer because it guarantees the ethical treatment of workers," he said.

Moyer is general manager of Albert's Organics, a regional food distributor at the Purelands Industrial Park in Gloucester County. Fair-trade bananas account for 10 percent of all sales there.

A rising tide of public awareness is lifting fair-trade goods into the mainstream. Sam's Club now offers fair-trade coffee, as do McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. Sara Lee and Nestle use fair-trade chocolate in their treats.

According to a study by the National Coffee Association, 20 percent of Americans are aware of fair trade; of those consumers, 56 percent say they are willing to buy a product based solely on its fair-trade status.

"For the past few years, customers have been asking us about fair trade," said Randi Orlow, spokeswoman for Whole Foods in Marlton.

The grocer took the concept a step further earlier this month, rolling out its Whole Trade Guarantee, in which Whole Foods promised that half its imported products will be fair-trade certified within 10 years. The company also pledged 1 percent of its fair-trade sales to the Whole Planet Foundation, which provides microloan grants to women entrepreneurs in the Third World.

In Ghana, farmers at the Kuapa Kokoo cooperative are the first group to be part owners of a chocolate company.

The business, Divine Chocolate, is marketing to organic and specialty food stores and recently became an approved vendor for Nordstrom.

"That means we can be sold in their cafes," said Erin Gorman, CEO.

In Ghana, cocoa farmers typically earn between $200 and $300 per year. Divine bolsters that by guaranteeing a minimum floor price of $1,600 per ton, plus a social premium of $150 per ton.

The farmers' cooperative channels the premiums into the community to fund schools, dig wells and establish women's empowerment programs.

Gorman said many of Kuapa Kokoo's 20,000 farmers are women; 12 of its 20 board members are female.

Digging wells is a priority because young girls frequently walk long distances to draw and carry water, a task that takes most of the day.

"Clean, accessible water means more girls get to go to school," she said.

Divine stamps its wrappers with symbols for traditional West African values such as adaptability, democracy and learning from one's past.

Gorman said there's a lot of wiggle room in pricing chocolate, which enables Divine to pay farmers more and still hit the sweet spot in the marketplace.

"In chocolate, the money is made through the brand, the way it looks, the way it's marketed," she said.

Coffee was the first product to be fair-trade certified and remains the top seller, said Jean Walsh, spokeswoman for Trans-Fair USA, the nonprofit organization that certifies goods.

Starbucks alone bought 18 million pounds of fair-trade coffee in 2006, double the amount in 2005. That's 30 percent of the fair-trade coffee imported into the United States.

Still, the Seattle-based roaster has been criticized because farmers in Ethiopia, where much of Starbucks' coffee is raised, have been unable to obtain licenses for their own geographic labels.

Company spokesman Andy Fouche said Starbucks isn't about to get into a harangue with naysayers.

"It's not a Starbucks issue," he said. "We don't have the power over who gets a license."

In recent months, Starbucks has rolled out its Coffee and Farmer Equity Practices, known as C.A.F.E., in which the company rewards farmers for meeting environmental and social goals.

"We consider our standards higher than fair trade," he said.

Reach Eileen Smith at (856) 486-2444 or esmith@courierpostonline.com