Poor Farmer

By Associated Press via Washington Post   August 30, 2012 HONOLULU — A national grocer said it has changed its label on packages of Kona coffee blends, making good on a promise it made last year to a group of Hawaii coffee farmers. But the Kona Coffee Farmers Association said Thursday Last year, Safeway agreed to change the label on Kona coffee blend products sold on the mainland to add the word “10 percent minimum Kona blend.” That was after the association called for a boycott of the company’s 1,700 stores nationwide because farmers believed the labels were misleading and degraded the reputation of Hawaii’s world-famous coffee. Safeway doesn’t sell the coffee blend in any of its Hawaii locations, so the company wasn’t subject to a law in the Aloha State that requires labels reflect the percentage of Hawaii-grown coffee, which needs to be at least 10 percent for the state designation. Instead, the state Department of Agriculture asked Safeway to voluntar...

Reuters August 30, 2012 (Reuters) - Thousands of bags of green coffee beans stored in New Orleans warehouses survived Hurricane Isaac unscathed, two operators said on Thursday. "Everything is fine. No major damage to the buildings and no damage to stored product," said Allan Colley, president of Dupuy Storage and Forwarding in New Orleans, in an email to Reuters. "Luckily we do have power, telephone, Internet, etc., so we're open as usual today and will be fully operational by this afternoon as more of our employees return." Kelly was unable to get to one of its warehouses but he said it appeared to be fine as there was no flooding in the area. Dupuy Storage is currently holding coffee in four of its buildings. One of its coffee warehouses, which is now behind a reinforced flood wall, was flooded in 2005 from Hurricane Katrina. Isaac was a slow-moving Category 1 hurricane when it hit New Orleans on Tuesday, leaving a soggy mess acro...