(**Update, 11/2/05: Starbucks Challenge 2.0 launches, with new prizes and new goals! Double the fun — Join in!)
Regardless of politics, most of us agree on one thing: If a company makes a promise, it should stick to it.
According to its own policy (PDF), Starbucks will make fair trade coffee for you, any day of the week, in the 23 countries it is licensed to including: Australia, Austria, Canada, China, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.K. and the U.S.
But just how easy is it to get a fair trade coffee in a Starbucks in one of those countries?
We aim to find out.
Join the challenge:
1) Simply visit your local Starbucks and ask: “Could I get a cup of fair trade coffee?”
2) Tell us what happened next. Was it hard or easy to get a cup? You can see our first posts here.
BLOGGERS: simply blog about what happened and tag it with “starbuckschallenge” (all one word) on del.icio.us (put the Starbucks location in the “extended” description). We’ll pull all articles into a feed and run that on our site - you can run the feed too, of course, if you’d like. ALSO help us get feedback by telling people about this challenge on your blogs.
NON-BLOGGERS: tell us what happened by emailing City Hippy or green LA girl, and we’ll do the rest.
Survey results
When the survey has gathered enough feedback we’ll get in touch with Starbucks and find out what their response is and how they intend to solve the problem, if any. If there’s no problem, then Starbucks gets tons of good free publicity.
Win a prize
Oh yeah…we nearly forgot to mention…we’ve got a prize to give away — two actually. On Halloween, we’ll select two people who contributed to win either:
- A 2 lb bag of Monkey & Son Velvet Hammer fair trade organic coffee.
- Fair trade yummies from Clipper-Teas.com: 400g organic instant chocolate, 50g organic Fairtrade tea, and 227 g organic roast & ground coffee, Italian style.
To win, simply contribute an amusing and informative post/email. Our favorite ones win — regardless of whether you have a good or bad experience.
Have a fair trade day
**Update, 10/5/05: Got questions? Here’s the FAQ.
**Updates: Cindy of Starbucks emailed (10/7/05) and we had a phone chat (10/10/05).
**Updates: Starbucks sent out a press release (10/10/05) — which can be at times misleading (10/11/05), declaring that they’ll be brewing fair trade coffee all this week at stores in US and Canada. Not all stores seem to be doing this, however… Is your local Starbucks brewing fair trade?
**Update, 10/12/05: Challengers report numerous problems while trying to get a cup of fair trade coffee at Starbucks.
**Update, 10/15/05: Starbucks admits to a “break down in customer service” and sends out a “reminder” email to Starbucks-operated coffee shops in the US and Canada.
**Update, 10/24/05: Starbucks sends out a revised press release.
**Update, 10/25/05: Starbucks responds to some — but not all — our questions regarding their customer service issues.
**Updates: 1 week till prize day! Top 11 reasons to take the challenge (10/24/05) — Now join the 102 blogs already taking the challenge! (10/26/05)
**Update, 10/26/05: I took the challenge at 3 different stores in LA — and only got fair trade coffee at one. The last store actually lied to my face.
**Update, 10/27/05: Breaking News: On Nov. 1, McDonald’s will start serving 100% fair trade certified coffee at 658 stores in New England and Albany, NY! Starbucks — What’re you doin’?
**Update, 10/30/05: Starbucks Challenge now has a frappr map! Add yourself to the map!
**Update, 10/31/05: The first winners of the Starbucks Challenge are announced! Challenge on — New prize info to come soon –
FEED (del.icio.us/starbuckschallenge):
Filed in: starbuckschallenge fairtrade coffee starbucks business tea losangeles london
Hey Siel
So awesome to be running this together…here’s to fairtrade days!
Namaste
City Hippy
Comment by City Hippy — October 4, 2005 @ 3:07 pm
Siel, love, I would participate if I patronized Starbucks. Arcata doesn’t have a Starbucks. In Eureka, I frequently went to Starbucks…
Love you,
Joseph Massey!
Comment by Anonymous — October 4, 2005 @ 7:35 pm
I’ll add this challenge to my blog in just a second. GREAT idea! In the meantime, you know what happened when I tried it. Nothing. There was no fair trade coffee in the building, as fas as the barrista could tell. Did you want me to try again, for the purposes of your study?
Andrea
Comment by Andrea — October 5, 2005 @ 6:19 am
Yeah — I remember the unfortunate Dekalb incident. I’ll tag that post on del.icio.us, but why not try it again? Might as well give ‘em the benefit of the doubt — Maybe it was a one-time oversight?
Comment by Siel — October 5, 2005 @ 11:41 am
I did go again -and the result WAS different. This is a new store for our dinky little town and the employees are, by definition, new. This time the manager was there and she knew about the policy and knew where the fair trade coffee was. So I got my little French press pot of fair trade coffee, which was pretty good, by the way.
I don’t know why there was no coffee out for me to buy or why the coffee was stored in such a weird place -but every place has SOME weirdness. I got my coffee. it was good. I was satisfied.
Andrea
Comment by Andrea — October 6, 2005 @ 5:50 am
Thanks for drawing my attention to this, I actually live on an Island at the bottom Of England that doesn’t have a starbucks yet, we only got a pizza hut and a sub way about 2 years ago. I think the nearest one is Portsmouth, I will go in one if I’m on the mainland and I see one, and post about it.
Comment by Nancyrowina — October 6, 2005 @ 9:57 am
A Starbucks-free zone! How’re the coffee shops there? Or perhaps there are only tea shops? :)
Comment by Siel — October 6, 2005 @ 2:20 pm
Great idea. Will put a link to this post on my blog too. I tried the starbucks here and the barrista said that they were not brewing fair trade coffee at that time. I asked him if they had a schedule for brewing it. He tried to check but could not find one. Didn’t ask him to make a fair trade “americano” for me? Is it considered fair if they can indeed make a “fair trade Americano” instead of brewing the coffee actually?
BTW I do not subscribe to delicious. Will technorati tags work?
Comment by Transmogrifier — October 6, 2005 @ 2:42 pm
Thanks for joining in! I’ll go ahead and tag your post to del.icio.us once it’s up — Anyone can tag it, so it’s no problem :) And Technorati tags are always good :) Let us know which Starbucks you went to.
A fair trade Americano prolly won’t be doable for Starbucks, since they don’t carry any fair trade espresso blends in their stores. But perhaps they’ll begin to if there’s demand for it?
Comment by Siel — October 6, 2005 @ 3:01 pm
That was Starbucks in downtown State College, PA (16801). BTW here is my post
Comment by Transmogrifier — October 6, 2005 @ 3:36 pm
No luck in Newnan, Georgia on October 10, 2005.
Comment by G Zombie — October 10, 2005 @ 2:13 pm
I haven’t tried this out yet but will give it a shot. Question, though: has anyone seen data (or happen to know) on the economics of using fair trade vs. regular bean? I.e., on average, what is the price difference between the two types of beans?
Thx,
-Holy
Comment by Holy — October 17, 2005 @ 9:15 am
Hey Holy — Thanks for dropping by :) By the price difference — Are you referring to the price difference on the consumer end? In general, for the consumer, buying fair trade beans doesn’t cost more than buying gourmet non fair trade beans (meaning fair trade blends will usually cost more than, say, Folgers or Nescafe, but not more than any other Starbucks or Peets blend).
Although the fair trade beans give more money to the farmers, the system is also geared to cut out a lot of the middle people who usually profit at the expense of the farmers. The coffee beans have a more direct route between the farmers and the consumer, so the beans end up being comperable in cost to other beans that go through the “normal” “free trade” route.
Of course, some companies have tried to jack up the prices on the consumer end, either to suppress consumer demand or for pure profit, on the hunch that the consumer will just assume fair trade coffee cost more and will be willing to pay for it. This practice has been brought to light in the past by fair trade advocates; Borders, for example, lowered their prices for their fair trade blend — Though I’m not sure if they make their own line of coffee anymore.
As for Starbucks — At $9.99 per pound, the price for Cafe Estima — the fair trade blend — is very much in line with their other, non-fair trade blends, which run between $9.95 to $15.99.
Comment by Siel — October 17, 2005 @ 9:27 am
Yeah, I mean the price of bean, not the markup that the store does. What I’m getting at is…if the coffee tastes better and it doesn’t rely on oppressive business practices, why isn’t it used all the time? Limited supply?
Thanks, I found your comments informative.
Comment by Holy — October 18, 2005 @ 3:24 am
Ah — The million dollar fair trade question. There is an issue with supply, though in most articles I’ve read, there are still more fair trade certified beans for sale than are sold.
However, the answer as to why fair trade certified beans aren’t used all the time is more complex. For many large companies, it’s still cheaper on the company end to use non-fair trade beans. Because non-fair trade beans don’t have to have business “transparency” — meaning the company doesn’t need reveal how much money is going where — companies can take advantage of farmers much more easily and keep the money for themselves.
However, there are also some socio and environmentally conscious companies who have chosen NOT to get certified for various reasons, even though they buy their beans at ABOVE fair trade price minimums. For more on that, you might look at the Coffee Crisis Series or this post, which gives you a quicker rundown of some of the concerns about certification from an activist’s perspective.
In terms of Starbucks, Starbucks could, and in my opinion, should fair trade certify more of their beans. As of now, they still say they’re waiting for “customer demand.”
Comment by Siel — October 18, 2005 @ 7:51 pm
Go team! The Starbucks Challenge is a great idea… It’s fantastic to encourage Fair Trade practices like this!
My particular experience with Starbucks and Fair Trade are as follows: My school (Quinnipiac University, CT) has just recently installed a fully functional Starbucks kiosk on campus. In addition to their other brews, the mini-Starbucks offers a Fair Trade variety! It’s brewed fresh and tasty and comes flavored with peace of mind.
I blogged about it here (and del.icio.us tagged it). Oh… and Siel, I too have a crush on a barista (again). Although, mine is more of the traditional, too scared to speak to her, heartbreak, hopeless type…
Comment by Sam — October 21, 2005 @ 9:02 pm
Wait Sam — I wanna clarify that my crush is non-sexual :) I’ve recently had a lot of Angelenos contact me via the blog, so I don’t want this particular barista to find me and think I actually wanna sleep with him — I just like drinking his coffee ;)
Good luck with your barista though. There’s just something about tatooed women, eh?
Comment by Siel — October 21, 2005 @ 9:24 pm
While I appreciate the effort to harass Charbucks as much as anyone, “Fair Trade” is largely a clever marketing scheme. Just like Americans tend to believe that Columbian coffee is “the richest in the world” thanks to years of successful advertising and marketing (and the invention of one “Juan Valdez”), no one would dare being against “fair trade” coffee! It is another example of clever naming/marketing and being sucked up by a public who can’t understand all of the complicated (and sometimes competing) issues at play, but can remember a simple slogan.
Non-fair-trade coffee does not equal “coffee purchased at below market value” or “harvested with slave labor”.
This whole exercise seems a little silly. If the Starbucks employee had the chutzpah to hand you a cup of coffee without apparent confusion, you would believe that you had been given a cup of “fair trade” coffee, but have no way of proving it. This is the problem with the system. It is simply labeling. The integrity of the entire system depends upon ethical (yet often uninforceable) conduct by each party in the chain.
So by all means, continue to ask for “Fair Trade” coffee. Believe that by doing so you are preventing some child from working in the harvest, or helping make some family get a better wage. Life is full of delusions that many people will happily believe.
Comment by Darren — October 25, 2005 @ 8:01 am
Ah — a dissenter! Thanks for joining us. Keeps the debate fresh.
But I’m not really sure why you believe fair trade’s a marketing scheme. It would be one thing if any ol company could just slap on a fair trade sticker calling their coffee fair trade, but the sticker’s given only after independent 3rd party verification — meaning that, for fair trade certified coffee, “ethical conduct by each party in the chain” has indeed been documented.
Still, I’m not totally clear as to why you think fair trade’s a delusion — Maybe you’ll come back and give me a chance to convince you otherwise?
We both agree on one thing though — fair trade is a complex issue. And though I do think the fair trade labelling is v. important, it does sometimes seem to oversimplify things. I’ve been exploring this and more in the Coffee Crisis series.
Comment by Siel — October 25, 2005 @ 9:14 am
Green LA Girl,
I live in Oxford, the home of Miami University and near Cincinnati, Ohio.
I believe that the reason why there is this breakdown in smaller coffee shops (like in Oxford) stems from the fact that
1) most consumers dont want to taste FTC (fair trade coffee) because they dont know about it or that they are happy to sip a caramel macchiato without looking around to see if there are other flavors of coffee available at all on the shelves.
2) It could be that the above effect resulted in the management of that store not brewing FTC at all due to low demand. People dont realize that FTC exists and its importance.
3) Most people are impatient (I speak for me and my 3 friends but I’m sure there are others) in waiting for 4+ minutes to brew coffee. Especially with winter around, we want that hot coffee sooner than later.
Comment by Herge — October 26, 2005 @ 10:40 am
Hey Herge — I totally agree with you. If Starbucks publicized the option for fair trade coffee and made it more readily avaliable, it seems the number of people drinking fair trade would go way up. Other strategies are being used to deter customers from ordering fair trade too. Not all the methods are official Starbucks policies, but they’re being used in many stores, unfortunately…
Comment by Siel — October 26, 2005 @ 4:27 pm
Guess what!! I went in to Starbucks today as promised. Talked to Sam (the guy I saw the other day) and asked for FTC. He said he didnt know anything about it but he would brew me some in a French Press. And he did it…. for free!! I had asked for venti size and he said that he would not charge me for it though I offered to pay it. I put the money for the coffee in the tip jar.
The French Press was frickin’ huge and he brewed coffee for 3 people when it was only me who asked for it. I had to sit there for 2 hours to finish 2 cups and take the last cup back home. That was the strongest coffee I have ever tasted in the US. In India, we have chicory in the coffee and it makes it really strong. But using the French Press to crush the beans and extract every bit of coffee seems to work wonders for taste and flavor. Ever since those 2 cups, I have been acting like a zombie with no sleep. I dont think I can sleep tonight with this amount of caffeine in my system. I drank water to rehydrate myself but I cannot force myself to sleep.
Talk about service. Normally people complain of lack of service. Now, I have to complain about complete customer satisfaction and more.
Comment by Herge — October 27, 2005 @ 6:39 pm
People who read this, i am a former starbucks employee of royal oak michigan. barista number 357317.
please dont make your baristas day more of a living hell than it already is. if they dont have fair trade, dont be a dickface and bitch and complain and tell them how its company policy to serve it to you.
if they are brewing verona and sumatra in the only brewers there, THATS IT.
the baristas have specific coffes that they have to brew every week, if fair trade isnt one of them, youre fucked. dont complain to him about how “you saw this blog on the internet that says…” blah blah blahstfu. if you dont work at starbucks, dont tell the people who do work there how to do their jobs. do not inform them about things you read on the internet, this causes them to get the manager, then the manager may not know what you are talking about either, which will cause either an argument, or him to call home office, further delaying your (and other peoples) “coffee drinking experience”…
point being, if it isnt being served, be conciderate. if theres a huge line of people, dont DEMAND that you have 6 french presses made so that you and your “trust-afarian”, granola-rebel, friends can laugh it up about how you “stuck it to the man”. the people that work for the company most likely hate their jobs, dont make their day even worse than it already is.
Comment by Anonymous — October 27, 2005 @ 11:15 pm
Herge — I added you to the feed — Nice of your Starbucks to give you so much fair trade coffee! Hope your caffeine withdrawal symptoms aren’t too intense ;)
And to the anonymous former barista — I think many of us really feel bad that the physical burden of this challenge falls on the Starbucks baristas, who didn’t come up with the corporate policies. Many fair trade advocates are hoping that once Starbucks realizes (admits?) there’s a demand for fair trade coffee, they’ll start brewing it more regularly, taking the French-pressing burden off of the baristas –
Comment by Siel — October 28, 2005 @ 1:01 am
“dont be a dickface and bitch and complain”
Ya gotta love that legendary customer service.
Comment by G Zombie — November 6, 2005 @ 10:17 am
I think the beauty of the Certified Fair Trade label is that you don’t have to go through a lengthy explanation and defend your purchasing practices. I would encourage everyone to go to the Starbucks website and read up on our sourcing policies. Being a Partner myself, I am extremely proud of how we source all of our coffee. When you go in asking for Fair Trade coffee (which I think is a great thing), a ‘knowledgable’ Starbucks Partner would like to sit you down and explain our CAFE practices (coffee purchasing guidelines) described on the website. We are all quite proud of how we source coffee and most employees are sensitive to/aware of the complex issues surrounding economic fairness, sustainability and social responsibility. I think the Starbucks Challenge is extremely interesting; I hope we do well and if not, I hope we get the word out.
The only criticism I would have is that the impression being made repeatedly is that if our coffee isn’t certified Fair Trade then it must be unfairly traded…and I don’t feel that is the case. I wish LA Girl (or someone) would do a deeper dive into how we source coffee and post that on her blog. Great activism!
Comment by e — November 9, 2005 @ 6:12 pm
Hey e — Thanks for stopping by. I think part of our concern here is that these “knowledgeable” Starbucks Partners are rather difficult to come by. Thus, the Starbucks Challenge.
I do think the CAFE program could provide good opportunities for farmers. However, as of 2004, only 14.5 percent of Starbucks coffee actually met C.A.F.E. practices. The percentage, Starbucks says, may cross the 50% line in 2007 — Meaning that even a few years from now, almost half of Starbucks’ coffees won’t meet CAFE standards. These stats are not mentioned on the website. In fact, to the lay reader, the website seems to imply that ALL Starbucks’ coffee purchases meet CAFE practices — which is not even close to true at this point.
And regarding your request for a “deeper dive,” Starbucks’ claim that all their coffee is fairly traded is explored here, as well as in other posts and comments. Sean’s comment on this post is especially relevant, as he’s actually met first hand some farmers who used to sell their coffee to Starbucks. In any case, please feel free to take a deeper dive into the blog to see the extent of the research before criticizing “the impression being made.” And please let me know if you feel any of the claims I’ve made are incorrect.
And thanks for the compliments on the activism :) As someone who seems to support fair trade certification, perhaps you might be willing to work from within Starbucks to get the chain to offer more than just a single blend of fair trade certified coffee in stores?
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