What really pisses me off about Starbucks’ CAFE practices is that, according to Starbucks, CAFE practices purportedly addresses fair trade’s shortcomings.
Starbucks constantly belittles fair trade certification. In its marketing materials, Starbucks writes (PDF): “Fair Trade certification is limited to small-scale farmers organized in cooperatives, and currently represents less than 3% of the world’s coffee farmers. Because of our size and quality requirements, Starbucks buys coffee from small, medium, and large scale farms.”
Why’s fair trade certification limited to this meager 3%? Cuz big companies like Starbucks haven’t made a larger commitment to fair trade certified coffee. Starbucks makes it sound like it’s just dying to buy the stuff, but not enough of it’s avaliable. In fact, the majority of fair trade certified coffee is STILL sold at “conventional” market prices because companies like Starbucks refuse to buy more of it.
I’d be cool with Starbucks complaining about the 3% thing if all — or at least most — currently certified coffee was being snapped up. Instead, Starbucks uses the small 3% figure as an excuse to buy through conventional channels — without owning up to the fact that the mermaid’s lack of commitment to fair trade is a big reason why more coffee isn’t fair trade certified.
It doesn’t stop there. Starbucks is eager to convince consumers that its CAFE practices covers more ground than fair trade, in terms of coffee quality and environmental issues. Basically, Starbucks implies that fair trade only guarantees a minimum price to a select group of farmers, without addressing other important issues.
Um — actually — fair trade certification’s not just about a baseline price. It has very strict environmental criteria, for example. And fair trade criteria is MANDATORY, not optional as per the CAFE practices “point system” which contains very few mandatory, and lots of optional, criteria.
As for quality — Part of the reason some coffee beans are of lower quality is because farmers are forced to pick and sell their crops early due to looming debts — cuz they haven’t received a fair price for their coffee.
All this badmouthing of fair trade doesn’t stop Starbucks from using the fair trade cache to boost its own rep. Starbucks trains its baristas and “partners” to tell customers that all of Starbucks coffee’s “fairly traded” — a statement that Starbucks itself has admitted is untrue.
The worst thing about CAFE practices? Less than 20% of Starbucks coffee even meets these watered-down standards. Starbucks aims to make it creep over 50% by 2007.
Where can you find those stats? Nowhere, unless you specifically antagonize the mermaid to get it. Starbucks’ website implies that ALL of its coffee meets CAFE practices standards — in fact, one of Starbucks’ phone reps told me as much. I only got more info on it when I said, “Ok, I know that’s not true.”
Sadly, I think the average customer would’ve said, “Wonderful!” and hung up.
Update, 5/17/06: Part III’s here.
Has there been any cases of baristas or phone reps telling lies in British Starbucks? Again, maybe this is an American problem, as opposed to a Starbucks problem.
Comment by beev — February 12, 2006 @ 3:49 am
That really, really bugs me. They have so much pull that they could really make a difference.
I was also really miffed when I found out Adagio’s Teas policy on organic and fair-trade products:
“Are you teas organic?”
While some of our teas are organic, most are not. This is simply due to the fact that experience has show us that most organic teas are simply lower quality. Currently, our only organic teas are our Rooibos “Red” teas, which are the delicious exception to the rule.
“Are your teas Fair Trade?”
There is only a handful of Fair Trade tea estates in the world (although several tea companies buy from these estates)! So few, in fact, that anything that they put their name on is exponentially more expensive for what generally turns out to be significantly lower quality.
We support the idea, but have decided to wait until the quality catches up to the hype!”
WHAT A LOAD OF CROCK! GRRR…
Comment by Jasmin — February 12, 2006 @ 6:13 am
That’s not very nice of them, is it? Presumably you don’t go there anymore.
I was chatting with an American friend today and I asked her if it is easier for companies to mislead their customers in America. She felt strongly that it is, because of the many states with their different laws and the fact that there are so many legal loopholes that corporations with expensive lawyers can manouvere themselves through if they want to. Pretty shitty, eh?
Comment by beev — February 12, 2006 @ 11:25 am
that’s interesting about Adagio teas. the “too expensive” argument is false. there are many companies like Choice and Numi that have numerous Fair Trade Certified teas and the cost is not prohibitive at all. Numi, based in Oakland CA, is gaining presence in the retail and cafe markets and it’s FTC teas are quite affordable (and tasty)
when companies say “there’s not enough sources of quality FTC goods” they’re usually saying “we don’t want to make the effort to add or switch suppliers” or “we have our special suppliers that have such ridiculously low slave-labor prices that we’d have to take a serious loss to buy non-slave-labor goods…”
Comment by bay area fair trade dude — February 13, 2006 @ 11:06 am
Beev — Yes — Some British baristas, at least, have been told to give the “all fairly traded” line. You can see City Hippy’s report on the issue here.
Comment by Siel — February 13, 2006 @ 8:35 pm
You mis-read City Hippy’s post. The barista may have been slightly confused and not entirely clued-up on every detail of Fairtrade, but it certainly wasn’t an attempt to mislead anyone. That is very clear.
One thing you might not be aware of: many of Sbx’s baristas in Britain are form Poland or another Eastern European country. We have had a recent influx due to the expansion of the EU and many are ending up in Sbx (to them it is a very good job with good pay). Often their English is shaky to say the least. I know many native English speakers who are quite interested in social issues but would struggle to give a coherent explaination of what Fairtrade is. To expect a Lithuanian barista who’s just arrived in Britain to do so would not only be hoplesssly ambitious, but also a real pain for that person who is still just trying to get right the basics of everyday English.
Anyway, point is: they may be a bit confused, but nobody has told them to lie.
Comment by beev — February 14, 2006 @ 3:14 am
Many Starbucks’ baristas in the US are from a Spanish-speaking country. As in the UK, not all are clued-in on fair trade.
English is actually my second language — but honestly, this is way besides the point. My point is that Starbucks claims that they have the same goals as fair trade, and, accordingly, that their stores will make customers a cup of fair trade certified coffee on demand. I simply wish Starbucks would actually do good on this claim.
Comment by Siel — May 17, 2006 @ 7:21 pm
You commented on my blog about this posting (http://business4anewday.blogspot.com/2006/06/starbucks-african-coffee-celebration.html). Thanks for the information. As I say in my first post, I started my blog to learn. I appreciate it that you took the time to comment to give me some information.
I do want to point out that I met a coffee buyer who buys for a few places in the Southeast. He buys mostly fair trade, organic and shade grown when possible (or some combination of the three). Anyway, he told me that he travels occasionally with a main buyer for Starbucks and did say that they do try to do the right thing, when possible, in terms of their coffee purchases. No doubt, based on what I read on your blog, they can do better.
Comment by SevGen — June 8, 2006 @ 1:32 pm
Siel:
You see…this is the emotive part of the problem going on here. You write “Many Starbucks’ baristas in the US are from a Spanish-speaking country. As in the UK, not all are clued-in on fair trade.”
Your website implies you live in the Los Angeles area, where it is possible that a higher percentage of hispanics work in Starbucks stores, but your assertion that many in the U.S. are from a Spanish-speaking country is just bullshit.
I travel all over the U.S. in my job, visiting Starbucks everywhere I go, and I can assure your audience that this is not true.
Secondly, your statement that they (these Baristas)are not clued-in on Fair-Trade applies to 99.9% of your audience. Unless you are a Fair-Trade attorney practicing this law, you’re all clueless. Sorry, but this issue is far too complicated for most people to understand at all. With more than 145,000 full-time Starbucks employees on the payroll, it is very likely that most of them do not know the complexities of Fair Trade any more than you do. Or, for that matter, any more than in the textile industry or any number of industries where raw materials are purchased for, or converted into, finished products. Your assertions are unsupported.
This is really beginning to sound like you and a few other folks on the Internet simply have an axe to grind against Starbucks and don’t really know what the real problems are. If you or anyone else can name one for-profit company that is doing more to improve the conditions of equitable trade down to the “community” level in coffee-growing countries, please let me know now who that company is. Just one, that’s all.
IF there is no other company within its industry sector doing more than Starbucks, then it may be time to shut down this blog and go find another cause to rally behind.
The ball’s in your court - not ours.
Comment by Jim — February 25, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
Postscript:
Please read the joint statement issued last week on:
http://www.starbucks.com/aboutus/pressdesc.asp?id=750
Did somebody say something about “walking the talk”?
Comment by Jim — February 25, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
Jim — “Many” is a rather vague term meaning more than just a few, which for some reason, you seem to have defined as meaning the majority. Just in LA, Starbucks hires more than a few people from Spanish-speaking countries.
I would disagree with your 99.9% number — Readers of my blog tend to be much more informed about fair trade issues than the average population. That said, I agree that many (there’s that word again) people out there aren’t very familiar with fair trade due to many reasons, including Starbucks’ obfuscating effort. I’m not sure what argument you’re trying to make with your comment, however — Pls clarify.
There are many companies doing a lot in coffee growing communities — Equal Exchange, Just Coffee, all the Co-op coffees, even Green Mountain. Of course, they’re not as big as Starbucks, so I’m guessing your argument then would be that these companies still do less, even if they do what they do — and what Starbucks COULD do — better than Starbucks does.
As for the bigger companies — McDonald’s is selling all organic, fair trade coffee in hundreds of its stores in the northeast. It has also swiched its UK stores to Rain Forest Alliance certified coffee and is paying an additional premium to farmers on top of that — and plans to make the switch to RFA coffee across all its stores in Europe. Every single espresso drink that Dunkin’ Donuts makes is fair trade certified. Compared to Starbucks, neither McDonald’s nor Dunkin’ Donuts makes as much of a hoopla about its ethical practices, so you just don’t hear about this news as much as you do about Starbucks.
You seem to think I’m v. much in the wrong, but I guess I’m left wondering why you’re arguing the semantics of the word “many” instead of addressing the actual issues about CAFE practices brought up in the post.
Comment by Siel — February 25, 2007 @ 11:07 pm
Siel
Your response does point out the need to be very clear on these issues, and I think we both agree with that.
CAFE standards were established by Starbucks - some say selfishly to make themselves look good - but the point remains, they made an ethical decision to spend the money to establish standards, principles, and practices that did not exist before they came along.
And yes, because Starbucks is bigger it can and should probably do more, but then, McDonalds should be blowing Starbucks away with generosity in the international market (concerning Fair Trade), and I don’t see that happening. Nestle is HUGE compared to Starbucks, but where’s the press on all of the efforts they are making to support Fair Trade (cocoa and coffee are related farming products)?
I think an honest assessment of this would be to specifically compare actual Dollars/Euros directed in support of Fair Trade for each of ten (or 20) largest companies directly associated with coffee roasting and imports (not puddings and cakes) and weigh these numbers against available operating incomes relative to international market presences for each of the companies being compared.
Let’s see who really needs the focus of attention.
As far as hoopla from MCD/Dunkin, you better believe if they had something to toot their horn about - particularly with MCD’s massive efforts to recapture market share right now - they would not keep it quiet, as you infer that they are doing.
You wanna know what I believe? I believe all of these companies could be doing more. I believe that if you and many others who share your desire to see Starbucks contribute more to Fair Trade would examine several other companies with the same microscope that you are watching Starbucks with, you might not like what you see.
And if, for any reason, you think Starbucks is the only company that needs improvement, you are probably really mistaken. Interestingly enough, Starbucks makes it easy to challenge their policies because they put everything “out there” for ppl to read - or in some cases, obtain through due diligence. But have you tried to penetrate the McDonald’s corporation lately?
Oh, and BTW, shame on me for not mentioning this, but coffee sales is incidental to McDonalds revenues anyway, so why in heck do they even factor into this discussion? There are hundreds of thousands of retail outlets selling coffee in the U.S. Geez, Siel, you can get coffee at the gas station. Should we start looking at Exxon-Mobile?
FYI, I am neither an employee nor a stockholder of Starbucks.
Comment by Jim — February 26, 2007 @ 11:30 am
I’m not sure why you might conjecture that I think Starbucks is the only company that needs improvement. After all, I’ve publicly dressed up as a Crunch bar to protest Nestle’s practices, and I never buy any Nestle crap. In contrast, some activists chide me for actively sending people to spend money at Starbucks via the Starbucks Challenge.
Your main point here seems not to be that Starbucks could be doing better — I think we agree on that — but that I should not be going after Starbucks because there are other worse companies. Is that correct? If so, let me refer you back to my previous response to one of your comments as to why I and other fair trade activists are concerned about Starbucks specifically. If that is not your main beef with me, please let me know what exactly your complaint is, and I’ll try to answer your Q.
FYI — I think my IRA contains some Starbucks stocks.
Comment by Siel — February 26, 2007 @ 12:25 pm
Siel
I don’t think what you say bothers me. I believe that I found, in the Starbucks Corporation, a company that has demonstrated more good than bad financial and socio-economical activities than others have. I think it sets a good example for other companies competing against it to follow.
No for-profit company can be a saint when it comes to doing good for the environment or poor people or other causes. The first objective in business is to generate revenues through the production of goods or services. Creating jobs, serving the community, cleaning the environment, helping struggling third-world nations prosper, etc. are all secondary activities…or usually farther down the priority list.
My major beef with the dialogue in your blog was constant slogging against one company without an equal share of slogging dished out to others. I seek “slogging equality” from your website - a balance of bashing, if you will, and I happen to think far deeper problems are to be found elsewhere.
Otherwise, I believe wholeheartedly in what you’re doing and these types of forums serve to enlighten all of us though improved communications about these and other issues. And no, I’m not really trying to sound condescending, but it probably comes across this way.
I’m an older-generation guy who remembers life in the 1950’s when we didn’t have such easy access to information - and to each other. You see problems with Starbucks…I see problems with ignorant children in public schools for which I am taxed a fortune to support. We all have our own issues. Starbucks - and their success - is not mine. Not in the least.
Comment by Jim — February 27, 2007 @ 8:08 pm