Poor Farmer

By Philip Ngunjiri Nation Media December 23, 2007 IT IS THE YEAR 2005, AND A COFfee farmer somewhere in the highlands of Ethiopia is saying he has uprooted his coffee crop to replace it with khat (miraa). Reason: He can get a comparatively higher price for the latter, compared with the low price he is getting for coffee. Fast forward to 2006 and you are at the New York Board of Trade, a commodity trading floor in New York City, in the US, where the international benchmark price of coffee is set each business day based on weather, supply and demand. These are scenes from Black Gold, an award winning documentary. The film contrasts the enormous power and wealth of the multinational coffee companies with the plight of poor Ethiopian coffee farmers as they struggles for a better life. The documentary explores the effects of international prices (which by 2006 were at an all-time low) on coffee growers. As the film unfolds, it is evident that despite the global coffee market being worth b...

Starbucks Corporation Chairman and Chief Global Strategist, Howard Schultz, came to visit Ethiopia a few months after his company signed a deal with Ethiopia recognising the trademark right the latter has over three of its coffee varieties. He met with Ethiopian authorities, including Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, and gave a lecture on balancing "business with benevolence" on Friday, November 30, 2007, at the Sheraton Addis. In all these, neither Mr. Schulz nor Ethiopian authorities have revealed the content of the agreement they have signed, observes Shlomo Bachrach. Employed by Ethiopia's trademarks advisor, LightYears IP, and resigning before the Starbucks negotiations began, Mr. Bachrach has a lot more questions than answers. - Addis Fortune By Shlomo Bachrach Addis Fortune December 2, 2007 Starbucks deserves full recognition for its announcement of a proposed Farmer Support Centre to be established in Addis Abeba. When completed, it will represent tangible compensatio...

Starbucks Press Release CSRwire December 1, 2007 KIGALI, RWANDA and SEATTLE - Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) chairman Howard Schultz announced today that the company will open a regional Starbucks Farmer Support Center in Rwanda. The facility will provide an opportunity for Starbucks to collaborate with farmers in Rwanda and in the East Africa region, and demonstrates the company's continued support for their efforts to expand the availability of their high quality, specialty coffee worldwide. "We are very excited to have a regional Starbucks Farmer Support Center here in Rwanda. We look forward to working with Starbucks to offer additional support to the coffee farming community here and in the neighboring countries," said Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda. "This center will offer many new opportunities to enhance our methods and produce even greater volumes of our high quality specialty coffees." The Rwandan center, like the one announced earlier thi...

"We are here to turn the page of the misunderstandings, for a new beginning," said Howard Shultz, chairman of the US coffee shop chain after having signed a coffee distribution and marketing deal with the Ethiopian government. - AFP Photo: Courtesy of AFP Starbucks to Build Ethiopian Farmers' Centre AFP November 28, 2007 US coffee giant Starbucks on Wednesday announced plans to build a support centre for Ethiopian coffee farmers, claiming an end to a long-running dispute with the East African country. "We are here to turn the page of the misunderstandings, for a new beginning," said Howard Shultz, chairman of the US coffee shop chain. He was speaking after having signed a coffee distribution and marketing deal with the Ethiopian government. "This is a real commitment to work side by side with the coffee farmers of Ethiopia," he added. Starbucks plans to build next year a center in Addis Ababa aimed to help farmers to raise the quality and production of...

By Tsegaye Tadesse Reuters November 28, 2007 ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Starbucks said on Wednesday it would open a support centre for coffee farmers in Ethiopia, which earlier this year clashed with the company over a bid to trademark its coffee beans. The world's largest coffee shop chain said it would open the centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, in 2008. The announcement was made in conjunction with a trip to Ethiopia by Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz. "The facility, the first in Africa, will enable Starbucks to work collaboratively with Ethiopian farmers to raise both the quality and production of the country's high-quality specialty coffees," Schultz said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The centre "will provide resources and ongoing support to coffee communities with the goal of improving coffee quality and growing practices," Schultz added. Starbucks said it is also in talks with an Ethiopian apparel factory to ...

Ethiopian News Agency [Government Owned] November 23, 2007 (Addis Ababa) - A delegation led by owner and board chairman of Starbucks, a leading Coffee Company of the U.S, would visit Ethiopia as of the coming Wednesday, the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office (EIPO) said. Trade mark director with the office, Wendwossen Belete told ENA on Friday that the delegation led by Howard Schultz would stay here for three days. Schultz is expected to hold discussions with high level Ethiopian government officials on various issues. Starbucks is the leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee in the world that recognized Ethiopia's ownership of its premium coffee brands. Howard Schultz is a businessman and entrepreneur most widely known as the Chairman and Chief Global Strategist of Starbucks. Schultz, who is founder Starbucks, has been chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer of the company since its inception in 1987. ------- Ed's Note: To read a summary of the t...

TV Campaign Is Culture Shift For Starbucks By STEPHANIE KANG, JANET ADAMY and SUZANNE VRANICA The Wall Street Journal November 17, 2007 With more than 10,000 U.S. stores, and products in shops around the globe, Starbucks Corp. has built one of the world's best-known brands. Now, for the first time, it's rolling that brand out on national TV. The decision is a cultural turnabout for the coffee giant, which built itself into a global chain by harnessing word-of-mouth buzz. Starbucks's chairman, Howard Schultz, wrote a decade ago: "[B]y its very nature, national advertising fuels fears about ubiquity." Today, competitors McDonald's Corp. and Dunkin' Donuts, which never had any qualms about hawking their wares on the tube, are stepping up their coffee marketing. And Starbucks, after years of phenomenal success, is struggling to lure customers as the economy softens. The first batch of ads, which aired last night, is timed for the holidays and uses "anim...

By JANET ADAMY The Wall Street Journal November 16, 2007 Average customer traffic at Starbucks Corp.'s U.S. stores fell during the company's fourth quarter for the first time, a sign that the Seattle coffee giant is having difficulty attracting customers as it moves into the holiday season. The company reduced its earnings and same-store-sales-growth estimates for the coming year. Starbucks planned to launch its first national television-advertising campaign today. In an interview, Chief Executive Jim Donald called the campaign "a very culturally sensitive, product-driven" effort. He said Starbucks is getting into TV advertising because "as we grow our stores, we're trying to reach out to this broader audience that maybe [has] not had a chance to experience Starbucks." Chief Operating Officer Martin Coles said the ads highlight factors that differentiate Starbucks from rivals. The spots are part of Starbucks's holiday/winter campaign and feature ani...

The move could help the country's coffee growers to earn some $88 million more per year. By Matthew Clark The Christian Science Monitor Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia November 09, 2007 Nestled in the hills of southern Ethiopia lies a resource that could catapult this nation forward: coffee. Connoisseurs worldwide savor the beans from Yirgacheffe for their distinctive flavor. And at a time when more consumers are targeting specialty brews, Ethiopia is poised to reap the rewards of a product that commands $10 per pound in the United States. But while upscale consumers are willing to pay top dollar for the beans, farmers in Ethiopia sell their product for a pittance – less than $1 per pound. "It's like growers of Dom Perignon Champagne getting the same price as growers of bulk wine," says Ron Layton, founder and chief executive of Light Years, IP, a Washington-based group that helps producers in poor countries get better prices. But Ethiopia recently shook up the industry with a...

Classic cappuccino: Bar Italia, above, ‘makes coffee from the heart, rather than from a manual’ Photo: Courtesy of Telegraph Cappuccino wars have broken out on the high street after one of Britain's largest coffee retailers announced a steep rise in its prices. Patrick Sawer Telegraph November 04, 2007 Starbucks has put up the price of its lattes and cappuccinos by four per cent, more than twice the rate of inflation.Industry experts have warned that rival coffee outlets will inevitably follow suit.The price rise means that Starbucks' smallest cup of latte or cappuccino, the Tall, has breached the £2 barrier for the first time: it now costs £2.05. Starbucks' largest cappuccino and latte, the Venti, now costs £2.65 - an increase of 10p. It is the second time that Starbucks has raised prices since April, when a small cappuccino cost £1.89 and the Venti £2.25. The American chain, which has come to dominate the high-street coffee market since it arrived in the UK in 1998, blam...

Vices of coffee trade and coffee house: exploiting the growers, sleeping in Starbucks, quackery and gabbling Bee Wilson Times Online October 31, 2007 The film Black Gold begins with a horrible sound, a nasal rasp like pigs snorting at a trough. This sound is being made by a rare breed of American coffee tasters, slurping tiny tastes of hundreds of different espressos and giving them very precise ratings – 89.5/100, for example. These experts, who are nerdish and decadent all at once, are like the Robert Parkers of coffee. They seem to labour under the impression that their palates are brilliant computers, capable of distinguishing flavour within a micropercentage. One of the tasters stops slurping for a moment and turns to the camera. “There’s one coffee here that is probably the best coffee that I’ve ever tried. Beautiful!” Halfway through the film, we hear a different sound. It is the animal wail of a child in Sidamo, Ethiopia. She has been brought to a health clinic to be treated fo...

Virginia De Leon Spokesman Review Staff writer October 24, 2007 It's not certified fair trade, but coffee supplied by a small Liberty Lake company has helped transform the lives of poor farmers in Ethiopia. Since 2002, Dominion Trading has partnered with families and growers in the country's Yirgacheffe region not only to produce premium whole bean Arabica coffee, but to provide health care, education and other humanitarian aid to the people of Ethiopia. "We want to build relationships in order to create solutions and change lives," said Mike Stemm, general manager of Dominion Trading. The business returns 60 percent of its net profits from coffee sales to Ethiopia through profit-sharing with coffee growers and also through the New Covenant Foundation, a nonprofit also established by Stemm. So in addition to paying farmers a higher price for their coffee, Dominion Trading and the New Covenant Foundation have focused on community health care, literacy, finance, church...

By Tesfa-alem Tekle Sudan Tribune October 20, 2007 October 19, 2007 (ADDIS ABABA) — Ethiopia has collected 412 million US dollars from coffee export over the past Ethiopian year, the ministry of Agriculture and rural development Dessie Nure told walta news service. He said “Ethiopia has exported a total of 176,000 tones of coffee to the united states and other European countries over the past Ethiopian year” Ethiopia’s coffee is one of the best worldwide which accounts over 60% of the total foreign currency of the nation. “The ministry said over 100 coffee exporters and unions were involved in the export". The Ethiopian coffee trade is very important to the culture of Ethiopia. Many Ethiopians and historians believe that the word coffee came from the Ethiopian word "kafa". Coffee in Ethiopia has strong traditions that stem back to the 10th century, when coffee was discovered in Ethiopia. The farming of coffee has strong traditions with Ethiopian families. Generations of ...

By Dominique Patton Business Daily Africa October 15, 2007 Success of coffee houses like Starbucks is fuelling a shift to premium coffee in the US. The addictive ‘coffeehouse experience’ is increasingly persuading Americans to buy brands like Starbucks, Caribou and Peet’s instead of opting for traditional names like Maxwell House. This shift also means that they are prepared to pay more for premium brands, according to a new report from consumer research firm Mintel. Coffeehouse sales increased by 28 per cent in the two years to 2006. “ As a result of coffeehouse expansion and increased use, consumers have been exposed to a variety of coffees — raising the bar on consumer expectations on taste and quality, and creating the desire for taste experiences they wish to emulate at home,” say the authors. Retail brands are seeking a share of the premium trend too. Folgers launched a gourmet selection in eight varieties last year, priced at $6.39 per pound. Fair trade coffee is also seeing str...

US Company to Invest USD 50mln in Coffee Farm, Roasting Facility By Hayal Alemayehu Ethiopian Reporter October 13, 2007 B&D Food Corporation, an American-based company, is set to invest USD 50 million in coffee farm and erection of a roasting facility in Ethiopia under its recently established subsidiary, BDFC Ethiopia Industry PLC. The company has already secured 5,000 hectares of coffee farm in Jimma, Oromia region, on which it will be producing “high quality” Ethiopian coffee, company representative Benjamin Petel told The Reporter in a statement on Sunday. BDFC Ethiopia will also erect a coffee roasting facility around the coffee farm site, which had last week been handed over to it by the Oromia Investment Commission. Presently, the company is finalizing preparation to embark upon the project. “BDFC Ethiopia intends to begin planting in the coming months and, in parallel, is working on building a processing factory on the plantation grounds,” Petel said. “B&D hopes to proc...

Roasted coffee beans are displayed by an employee of a shop which sells the Arabica and Robusta varieties of coffee, in Jakarta on Jan. 17, 2007. Photographer: Ng Swan Ti/Bloomberg News By Danielle Rossingh Bloomberg October 12, 2007 Robusta coffee rose to a 10-year high in London on concern that drought in Brazil and possible floods in Vietnam will curb supplies from the world's biggest growers. Brazil's main coffee-growing regions of Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais are unlikely to see much rain in the next seven days, U.S. weather forecaster Meteorlogix LLC said in a report yesterday. Rain in Vietnam's southern coffee belt may mean flooding, the forecaster said. ``The weather in Brazil is dry, dry, dry,'' Jeff Cooper, an analyst at Ambrian Commodities Ltd. in London, said by phone today. The market is ``all weather driven.'' The price of robusta beans, used to make espresso and instant coffee, has gained more than 46 percent in a year, threatening to crimp prof...