Poor Farmer

Cafédirect to go head to head with US cappuccino giant The Independent By Danny Fortson and Lauren Veevers Published: 11 March 2007 Selecting a coffee can be a complicated affair: American-owned outlets have introduced a generation of Britons to all sorts of often baffling sizes, types and milk-fat combinations. Now, though, all this is about to boil down to one key choice: would you like your coffee with ethical feelgood factor to go? Cafédirect, the UK's largest Fairtrade hot drinks company, is planning to roll out a network of city-centre bars, sparking coffee wars on British high streets. With the UK Fairtrade market soaring to the £200m mark, the company is seeking to challenge the omnipresent Starbucks, criticised last year for its alleged unfair bargaining with Ethiopian coffee farmers. Penny Newman, chief executive of Cafédirect, said: "We want to get our message across, and a coffee bar is a good way to do that." Part of the profits from the stores will be sent b...

"Shame on Starbucks, whose revenues in 2005 were $6.4 billion, for trying to strong-arm a country whose entire gross domestic product is $6 billion. That's unfortunate. Those folks could use an uplifting experience or two, not to mention a little enrichment." - Huston Chronicle Editorial ------------------ Starbucks vs. Ethiopia American behemoth still lukewarm to Ethiopa's efforts to secure fairer coffee bean prices. Houston Chronicle March 9, 2007, 8:54PM It's a long way — both figuratively and literally — from Seattle, home of upscale coffee-shop giant Starbucks, to Ethiopia, hard-scrabble birthplace of the coffee bean. Ethiopia is one of the oldest, poorest nations in the world, and more than 80 percent of the population are engaged in agriculture, mainly subsistence farming. But that didn't stop the mighty Starbucks from reaching out and slapping the upstart African nation when it tried to secure fairer prices for its coffee beans. Two years ago, Ethiopi...