Everyone has something to say about Starbucks. Even within the fair-trade-friendly community, opinions are split.

Thom of Monkey & Son — a local 100% organic and fair trade certified coffee company — has some misgivings about Starbucks’ business practices, but says it’s great that Starbucks has gotten people to demand better-tasting, quality coffee.

Ric of Groundwork agrees. According to Ric, the real problem is companies like Folgers, say, who make gross coffee. He tends toward the quality argument — if the coffee’s yummy, it’ll help mitigate the coffee crisis.

Others don’t feel so warm towards Starbucks. Take Larry’s Beans, for example: “We left TransFair in 2004 because we did not want to be confused with companies like Starbucks that only offer a small selection of Fair Trade coffee.”

Why these differences in opinion? An AFP article describes the split: “Within the fair trade community, activists distinguish between a “reformist” approach and an “alternative” one. Both seek to improve the lot of small-scale producers of commodities, but each has very different ideas about how to do so.”

Larry’s Beans would fall under the “alternative” camp — whose “far more ambitious — and radical — aim is to create parallel structures that bypass profit-driven market structures altogether.” Committed to fair trade issues, it irks Larry’s Beans that TransFair certifies companies like Starbucks that are not wholly committed to fair trade ideals.

In fact, why even bother with the Starbucks Challenge? Most readers of this blog would prefer to get their coffee from local roasters whose businesses are based on fair trade principles. Who cares if Starbucks serves fair trade or not?

The “reformist” camp cares. These fair trade activits are more willing to work with big companies, to get into the supermarkets, to reach a larger number of consumers.

The reformists have sometimes come under attack for this. Oxfam, for example — known by many for its anti-globalization messages — defended its work with huge, multinational companies on campaigns such as Make Trade Fair: “We understand that you can’t ignore the power that corporates wield in the fight against poverty,” said Oxfam’s spokesman in an article from The Guardian. “We’d be failing the people we’re trying to help if we weren’t trying to find new and innovative ways of working with companies and harnessing their potential to be real players in helping us achieve our goals.”

The fact is, when Starbucks makes changes, those changes have HUGE impacts. Yes, fair trade beans only make up 1% of Starbucks’ purchases. But that 1% is about a quarter of ALL fair trade beans that come into the US.

Getting Starbucks to up their fair trade purchases to 2%, or even to the TransFair recommended 5% minimum, would drastically change the fair trade landscape.

Of course, green LA girl still buys most of her coffee from Monkey & Son…

Filed in: starbuckschallenge trade business coffee csr fairtrade losangeles starbucks

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