The Seattle Times reported that Starbucks has opened its first store in Africa on Thursday.
The Cairo location will be run by Kuwait-based company M.H. Alshaya, which also operates more than 170 Starbucks stores in Kuwait, Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Jordan and Turkey.The coffee shop chain opened its first stores in Brazil about a month ago and has plans to open locations in India and Russia in 2007.
The poor coffee farmers in Africa are still asking Starbucks to honor its commitments. Few weeks back, The Standard, posted here, reported that "angry farmers from a coffee factory in Nyeri District have blasted officials of the Starbucks Coffee Company for refusing to respond to their questions on a project the multinational is undertaking in the area.” According to the report, Mr John Kabira, a farmer said "Starbucks interests are only in making profits from our coffee, and yet they are not even mindful about our welfare."
On the other hand, according to this commentary, these new emerging markets have their eyes at the public dispute between the company and Ethiopia over, what else, Ethiopia’s own coffee names. How the company handles the standoff will undoubtedly be detrimental to its success in the regions. After all, Arabs are not strange to the origin of coffee Arabica.
This public attention is an opportunity for Starbucks to promote the company’s stance not only because the alternative does not look good but also it is less expensive to do it at this time.
Having worked at a Starbucks in an international building, I have had a chance to sample various Harrar's from Ethiopia thanks to a friend at the Ethiopian consolate.
ReplyDeleteWhile Harrar is the region all of these coffees were grown in, they each provided a completely different experience on the palate. Some of the harrars vibrated on the tounge, singing distinct blueberry notes; while others couldn't be distinguished from freeze dried coffee.
In making an entire region of Harrar a brand name: Harrar® ... takes away the effort of many farms in Ethiopia that are prideful of the product they create through dedication to quality and sustainability.
In branding the region, the negative effects of capitolism will take hold of a very old tradition. Big business will move in and push out the small coffee farms which will not be able to compete in future competitive markets due to product demand. The distinctive variations in qualitiy of the coffees of Harrar will become mainstream, standardized, and out of the hands of the farmers. Instead the Harrar brand will be controlled by a single source.
Starbucks is against this happening and as much propeganda there is out there about it being a bad company, I still remain here because while it is big, it still gives back more than a lot of megacorps.
You see Matthew, Ethiopia is not planning to trademark the whole coffee grown in Harar, only the specialty coffees coming from Harar! Branding the region name is what Starbucks has suggested as the best option and Ethiopia opposes to that suggestion. Branding the region Harar would make it difficult to differentiate between the best coffees from the other commodity coffees. So, I agree with you, that is not a good idea.
ReplyDeleteComparing what Starbucks pays for a pound of coffee (though the price advertized by the company is practically not different considering the labor intensive operations involved in order to meet Starbucks' quality standards)is misleading.
The price paid for a pound of coffee should be weighed in terms of what the farmer deserves, not based on what the buyer wanted to pay. This is not a charity. Farmers should be paid what their work and creativity is worth. When Starbucks sells some of the coffees for $26/lp, the farmer is paid $1.28/lp. That is not fair and that is where we need to focus on.
Thanks for your getting involved.....stay well.