[The whole Certification Challenges series is here.]

When talking about big companies’ reluctance to ramp up their fair trade commitments, activists will often point to a 5% commitment. At the moment, TransFair USA, the nonprofit that licenses fair trade products for the US, encourages companies to ramp up their fair trade purchases to 5% of its total coffee purchases within 2 years.

Where did the 5% argument come from? Dan, a panelist at USFT (left, scouring the wine list with Julia of Equal Exchange) who’s writing a book about fair trade, said the 5% deal was a “tacit” agreeement that ended when Starbucks entered the fair trade market. But I’ve yet to hear from anyone who was part of that agreement, tacit or not.

So I asked Matt of Just Coffee, a 100% fair trade (but not certified) coffee roaster, who said: “You should talk to EE (Equal Exchange) about the 5% dealio.” I asked Rodney of Equal Exchange, also a 100% fair trade (and 100% certified) company, who said he’ll try asking other people.

Really, I’ve found it difficult to find any concrete evidence that this 5% thing predated Starbucks’ entry into the fair trade market.

Jean of TransFair USA said her research leads her to believe that the 5% recommendation’s something that came into being as a result of Starbucks joining in the fair trade movement — which is looking likely. Matt of Just Coffee concurred, sort of: “My understanding was that the 5% discussion/expectation was the direct result of TFUSA romanicing big roasters who would be reluctant to commit in a meaningful way.”

Ah. Well, if 5% wasn’t meaningful, what’s 3.7%? Cuz that’s where Starbucks is now. After 6 years.

I get the impression that EVERYONE (Global Exchange, TFUSA, other FT activists) saw it as a victory of sorts when Starbucks entered the fair trade market. Cuz at that point, TFUSA was like 6 people in a room with about 15 licensees. It seems pretty clear now that both NGOs and mission-based companies saw that entry as a first step in the mermaid’s efforts to fundamentally change the way it does its coffee biz.

Clearly, that didn’t happen.

So — Was Starbucks required to make a real commitment to fair trade?

It seems quite likely that Starbucks was never held up to a 5% agreement. This is pissing off everyone else in the movement. Smaller, mission-based companies see Starbucks getting all the credit — down to a laudatory article written by TFUSA for Starbucks’ newsletter — with just one fair trade product. Activists hear people equate fair trade with Starbucks, despite the fact that, as a company, Starbucks has little alignment with these activists’ values about what a company can and should do.

The USFT convergence, where these issues, um, converged, was so last month. Since, TFUSA’s put out a brand spankin’ new FAQ to answer some of these critiques.

And, I hear there’s some stuff in the works for the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) conference in Charlotte early April.

Damn — Wish I could go, but I’ll be at UC Riverside, presenting a paper on Rikki Ducornet and the Surreality of War…

[The whole Certification Challenges series is here.]