Poor Farmer

This week, Coffee Politics highlighted information suggesting as though a meeting between Starbucks experts, NCA, Ethiopian government officials, and representatives of cooperatives was going to be held in Geneva. The information was based on this report which has now proved to be inaccurate as it was based on an outdated statement. Though there was an idea suggested by Starbucks in December 2006 to hold a meeting in Geneva, there is no such plan at the moment.

A must-read analysis by Oxford Marketing Professor, Douglas B. Holt (Originally posted here with permission from the author on Nov 17, 2006) On this page, also read the following: Ethiopia presents an early test to Starbucks’ 2007 growth strategies   Storm in a coffee cup: Starbucks defends itself over Oxfam campaign   Feel Good: Only 94% of Our Coffee is Unfairly Traded The Unfortunate Trio Blend: Starbucks, Black Gold, Ethiopia   Brand Hypocrisy at Starbucks by Douglas B. Holt Download this article here (PDF). Efforts by the Ethiopian coffee sector to trademark Ethiopia’s most valuable coffee brands have come to a screeching halt, courtesy of The Starbucks Corporation. The coffee sector is pursuing trademarks in all major international markets on Sidamo, Yirgecheffe, and Harrar so that they can then apply sound marketing techniques to increase the commercial value of these brands. The goal is to significantly raise the incomes of many of the 15 millio...

By Wondwossen Mezlekia According to online sources, Starbucks’ growth strategy for 2007 is three-dimensional - store expansion, product development, and Socially & Environmentally Responsible (SER) coffee purchasing. Starbucks CEO Jim Donald reportedly stressed, during the fourth-quarter conference call, that purchasing socially and environmentally friendly coffee is as important an initiative as the other two. We will have to live and see whether Donald’s promises translate into practice but it is apparent, right from the onset, that the ongoing dispute between Starbucks and Ethiopian coffee farmers is a lead up to testing the strategy and Starbucks’ commitment to live up to its words. Though none of the strategies are new, in my view, Social & Environmental Responsibility (SER) continues to be the pillar and a challenge for Starbucks as long as coffee is the core of the business because of the importance of sustainability of supply. Market data indicate that Starbucks stands ...

Ashley Seager Friday January 19, 2007 The Guardian Starbucks, the US coffee giant, yesterday hit back at critics who have accused it of not doing enough to help coffee growers in poor countries. The group said it had sharply increased the average price it paid for its coffee last year. But it acknowledged it had not reached any agreement with Ethiopia over a trademark dispute which has prompted thousands of people around the world to write in protest to the company's chief executive, Jim Donald. Starbucks said it had raised the average price it paid for coffee in its fiscal year to last October to $1.42 (72p) a pound, 37% above the industry coffee price over the period and 11% more than it had paid in 2005. It also said it had doubled to 155m lbs the amount of coffee it bought through the independently verified coffee sourcing and purchasing guidelines known as CAFE. This type of coffee now accounts for 53% of all the company's coffee. The company's coffee bill was about $4...

Starbucks believes that the company deserves a credit for being one of the biggest Fair Trade coffee purchasers in North America. I agree the company has taken some steps in the right direction but the fact that Fair Trade makes up only less than 6 per cent of its annual coffee purchases is outrageous. The company's video released on YouTube - the new battleground - once again featured Mr. Dub Hay who failed to explain why the company prides itself for purchasing infinitesimally small amount of Fair Trade certified coffees while over 94 per cent of its purchases are still unfairly traded. There is a big difference between a fair price and aid or a tip, you know. The farmers who grow the best coffees in the world still continue to live under severe poverty whereas Starbucks sells these coffees for $26 per pound. Yet, the company insists that we should feel good about drinking Starbucks. CAFE or not, the farmers' question is for Starbucks to pay for the coffee it brews - a pric...

It is quite fascinating to see giant corporations, whom we perceive as untouchable, sometimes act like human beings. Personally, nothing captivates me more, in this automated corporate world, than feeling the honest human characters behind the amorphous structures operating in robotic styles and boring façades. And that is one of the good things I see in Starbucks; the fact that the company sometimes acts like a natural person – age doesn’t matter. Here is one such act – an act anyone you know might do. Last week, Black Gold movie’s opening in Los Angeles was announced through postings on several websites including here on Coffee Politics . As reported here , Starbucks issued what it calls a rumor response on January 12, 2007. By the way, I don’t see how a gossip retains its status as a rumor after making it all the way to an official website. Any ways, the response accused Black Gold by saying, “the film incompletely represents the work Starbucks is doing to address this (“ this” ref...

By Wondwossen Mezlekia Ethiopia is mentioned many times in Starbucks’ dictionary than in the Bible (where it is cited over 38 times by both Old and New Testaments.) Until recently, company websites and the tiny blackboards hanging in the stores used to rightly feature Ethiopia as the origin of coffee. Lately, however, the company’s coffee education web pages appear to be receding and incoherently abandoning any reference to Ethiopia. Starbucks’ love affair with the name Ethiopia seems to have come to a halt with the origin of coffee renamed as a broader region in the continent. Today, there are three versions of coffee history adapted by Starbucks’ English language websites. The website for North America looks at the Horn of Africa and the Red Sea as the source of coffee: “The first coffee plants are said to have come from the Horn of Africa on the shores of the Red Sea. Originally, coffee beans were taken as a food and not as a beverage. East African tribes would grind the coffee cher...