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The Starbucks-Government Celebration Postponed


The events scheduled for June 20, 2007 at the Ethiopian Embassy in Washington, DC and at the Ambassador’s residence are postponed.

An electronic communication issued today by The Whitaker Group, a consultant to the Starbucks Coffee Company reads:

“This is to inform you that the press event at the Ethiopian Embassy as well as the reception at the Ambassador’s residence, which were scheduled for this Wednesday, 20th June 2007, are postponed until later this summer due to scheduling difficulties.”

On June 18, 2007, the Embassy invited unidentified number of people to attend a press event at the Embassy and a reception ceremony to celebrate what they called, “the ongoing collaboration between the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia and the company in support of the Ethiopian coffee industry.”

The long awaited licensing agreement deal is not mentioned in any of the announcements or invitations received by Coffee Politics. The postponement of the Embassy event and reception until an unspecified date later this summer suggests that the two sides have failed to reach an agreement.

The negotiations began shortly after the joint announcement on May 3, 2007 that Starbucks had accepted, in principle, Ethiopia’s ownership of the marks “Sidamo” etc. A formal agreement was expected before the end of May, it stated.

No further explanation was offered for the postponement of the events besides the “scheduling difficulties.”

Starbucks had been widely criticized for rejecting Ethiopia’s efforts to strengthen its premium coffee marketing program on behalf of poor farmers, and sought an agreement to end this public criticism. Ethiopia had sought an agreement with Starbucks, which dominates the US premium coffee sector, to support its program to create a network of licensed distributors of its famous coffees and earn higher prices for farmers.

If no agreement has been reached, both sides may fail to achieve their goals.

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