Christina, who does some work for Ideal Bite and who’s got some contacts within Starbucks, got replies — although not actual answers — to the 3 questions I asked about Starbucks’ policies regarding fair trade here.

Longtime readers of green LA girl have come across a lot of this Starbucks talk before, but we’ve got a lot of newbies plugging away at the Starbucks Challenge. Thus, I’ll feature one Q&A per post. Part 1 was here; part 2 follows:

SIEL: Despite its alleged commitment to fair trade, Starbucks offers only ONE certified fair trade blend in stores. When will Starbucks start offering its customers some real choices — light & dark roasts, espresso roast, and decaf?

STARBUCKS: As noted above, our commitment to purchasing coffee in a socially responsible way goes beyond our purchasing and marketing of Fair Trade Certifiedâ„¢ coffees and is not limited by labels and certifications. We offer our customers a number of choices to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable coffee production including Fair Trade Certifiedâ„¢ coffees, shade grown coffees and certified organic coffees. In addition, just like this year, we will sell more coffee with the FT logo next year than any other company in North America.

This question on my part had to do more with customer demand, which perhaps I should’ve made more clear. Last month at the United Students for Fair Trade convergence, Cindy of Starbucks told me that they were running out of Cafe Estima — Starbucks’ single fair trade certified blend — because customers bought more of the stuff than Starbucks had expected. For this reason, we’ve pushed back plans for Starbucks Challenge 4.0 to late April, by which time Estima should be in Starbucks stores again, according to Cindy.

Meaning: Customer demand for fair trade coffee is clearly outpacing Starbucks’ “commitment to fair trade.”

As co-founders of the Starbucks Challenge, City Hippy and I have had a lot of people — many from Starbucks — complain about how the Starbucks Challenge takers aren’t buying the wholebean coffee after tasting a cup. We also hear from a lot of people saying that consumer demand is what matters, that Starbucks isn’t gonna do more fair trade coffee unless customers buy it.

Clearly, SOMEONE’s been buying up Cafe Estima, despite the fact that Starbucks baristas often don’t know what fair trade is, and the fact that many stores often don’t even have Estima in stock.

And on college campuses, there’s a strong trend towards 100% fair trade coffee. Note, for example, the current campaign to get Jazzman’s and Java City to switch to 100% fair trade. At USC, the student-owned/operated coffee shop serves only fair trade coffee. It’s what students want.

Even Starbucks, when 100% fair trade companies like Pura Vida started taking over the college campuses, began finally offering fair trade coffee daily on its campus stores late last year. At least there, Starbucks is beginning to realize that their self-made, watered down version of ethical coffee — CAFE practices — isn’t gonna fly.

So I think that it’s about time Starbucks stopped acting like it’s just doing some charitable act for fair trade, as if it’s offering the stuff when people don’t even care about it. More and more people care increasingly about fair trade coffee. We’re buying it, and we want more of it.

And considering this clearly growing demand, it’s high time that Starbucks offered the fair trade stuff in more than 1 blend.

Update: Part 3 is up!

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