I’ve talked about my beef with Starbucks’ own CAFE practices before, here and here. But my main problem with CAFE practices, which Starbucks is working really, really hard to promote as something better than fair trade, is that CAFE’s a program that’s been made to benefit Starbucks over all other parties.
While CAFE practices guidelines are audited by a 3rd party, the guidelines themselves were made by Starbucks, for Starbucks. The problem with programs created by and for companies? Well, let’s start with Whole Foods, a company that’s — by and large — at the forefront of enviro-social awareness for grocery chains.
Allegro, Whole Foods’ coffee unit, launched a program in 2003 called High Five for Farmers that was to donate 5% of the sales from select coffees directly back to the farms. But according to the Wall Street Journal, this donation’s 5% of an undisclosed LOWER price — NOT the retail price — at which Allegro sells the coffee to Whole Food. Worse, this 5% is only applicable to one variety of coffee — out of more than two dozen — for just a 2-3 month period.
Can Whole Foods’ High Five program be beneficial to farmers? I’m guessing it’s better than nothing, but it’s really a far cry from fair trade certification, which GUARANTEES that coffee co-ops receive at least $1.26 per pound of green coffee — for every variety, all the time.
You can then imagine, then, why I’m so skeptical about Starbucks’ CAFE practices. I mean, Starbucks doesn’t even have nearly the green creds that Whole Foods does.
I’m not alone. Mark Inman of Taylor Maid Farms, a 100% fair trade company, says about CAFE practices: “It’s good for their side, but it’s not that great overall.” Mark said he was skeptical of internally-developed programs, even if the results were audited by 3rd parties. “There’s reason to be skeptical,” he said — despite the fact that Mark’s a friend of Sue Mecklenberg, SVP in Starbucks’ CSR (corporate social responsibility) department.
Even the NY Times, in today’s “green” section, points to the importance of third party certification programs. Seriously, Starbucks — a “certification system” developed by yourself for yourself? C’mon now.
Starbucks can try to sell CAFE as something that the mermaid created because it “saw a need.” A need for who, is what I, and many other consumers, wonder.
May 18th, 2006 at 8:23 am
Siel,
A few years ago I vaguely remember reading through one of Starbucks’ CSR reports and beign confused about the relationship between Starbucks and Conservation International. I think I remember that CI was one of their chief 3rd party certifiers and that the two orgs had such a close relationship that then SBUX Ceo Orin Smith was on the board of CI. I never followed up on it though. I am not claiming any sort of conspiracy but I do think that as 3rd party certifications become more popular it is crucial that we look not only at who is devising the standards (as in SBUX devising the standards for themselves) but also who is doing the certifying and what their relationship to the companies are.
In bananas, the major companies (Dole, Chiquite, etc) are big into SA8000 certification done by Social Accountability Int’l. Who is Social Acct. Int’l? I dont know. They are also really into ISO14001 done by the International Standards Organization.
We as consumers and activists need to look closely at the content of the standards, who is writing the standards, and exactly who is monitoring and certifying.
jba
May 18th, 2006 at 10:19 am
The name itself indicates starbucks self serving guidelines. Coffee and Farmers Equity Practices. Equity between Farmers and Who? Who is represented by the “Coffee.” Obviously it is SBUX. Because it wouldn’t be fair to SBUX to have to… play fair.
It indicates their feeling that they are getting ripped off as a corp by having to buy green coffee. Poor corporations, always getting the short end of the stick by participating in sustainable agriculture. boo-hoo
May 18th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
josh -
methinks your a bit off base. The name isn’t about equity between “coffee” and farmers. It is coffee practices and farmer equity practices. It just makes a better acronym if you use one practices at the end. If you read the csr literature the two components of cafe practices are 1) quality (”coffee”) and 2) economic transparency (farmer equity). I agree it is self serving though. First, sbux wants to ensure quality first and foremost. Secondly, ensuring that farmers get paid a fair price is all about sustainability. And by sustainability I mean sbux needs these farmers to stay happy (i.e. make enough $$) so that they continue to grow a great product. The problem with dropping prices is that you had farmers switching from coffee to more lucrative crops and that probably cost sbux more money in the long run because they then have to track down more coffee that meets their quality standards.
May 19th, 2006 at 3:07 pm
the quality aspect is always open to debate. qualitative “standards” are inherently relative and never objective. to starbucks, quality means a steady consistent supply of beans their millions of unquestioning customers expect. for peet’s coffee it means beans that can still have a minimal degree of chracter after having the soul toasted out of them. if subjective quality standards are always #1, then sustainability will always follow. the argument that better lives for farmers means better coffee does work, but without closer connections between roaster and farmer, nothing can be guaranteed. “faceless coffee” is still the problem.
May 20th, 2006 at 8:19 am
If you hare starbucks I know how you could choke its supplies. Starbucks does not own coffee brushes it short changes my grandpa and other poor people in the third world.
If I have a few million dollars I would make howard beg for forgiveness. Starbucks behaves like exxon, how can a cup of coffee cost 2 dollars while the cost of one pound of coffee is below 5 dollars.
May 21st, 2006 at 5:17 pm
Hey Jordan — I promise to research the Conservation International issue further once I get back to LA.
Josh & James — I too am not really sure I see any signs that the name CAFE itself is self serving, though I still do think that the guidelines themselves are.
hmmm… — I gree that “faceless coffee” is still the problem. As consumers, we’re constantly goaded into NOT thinking about the fact that coffee takes work — serious work from real people — to produce.
July 13th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading lately about this particular topic.
1) About the CI/Starbucks connection: Orin Smith joined the board of CI after the partnership began. He is still on the board although he is no longer CEO of Starbucks.
2) Has anyone here actually read the C.A.F.E. Practices guidelines? Apparently the original “Conservation Coffee” guidelines (developed by CI) were more rigorous than Organic certification guidelines in terms of environmental standards (they were meant to conserve biodiversity first and foremost). I’m no expert on standards, but the C.A.F.E. guidelines seem pretty rigorous in terms of environmental standards as well. It is true that there is no guaranteed minimum price as with FT, but there is a scale for premiums to farmers who achieve a certain score.
3) Are you aware that certification represents a cost TO THE FARMER? Farmers have to pay for their own verifiers/certifiers, in addition to whatever investments they have to make to comply with the standards. Many of Starbucks suppliers are already certified (”organic”, FT, Rainforest Alliance, etc) - why add to the bureaucracy? In any case, CI is not in charge of the verification process - Scientific Certification Systems is. They find people in the respective countries in Latin America and Africa (this is a variety of local organisations, depending on the country) and oversee the process. They also certify the USDA “organic” label and several other certifications, if I’m not mistaken.
4) Everyone is complaining about ‘faceless coffee’ - did anyone realise that the main innovation with CAFE Practices is the demand for transparency from roaster to farmer? Isn’t this what everyone wanted - CAFE coffee contracts include a breakdown of the price so that everyone knows exactly how much the farmers receive, and where the mark-ups occur. No, it’s not the face-to-face contact of FT, but there isn’t enough FT coffee in the world to supply Starbucks annual needs anyway. These practices are still radical for coffee supply and are being implemented on an unprecedented scale - Starbucks is an industry leader and in a major position to reshape the way coffee is bought and sold. I say give them a little credit, and at least learn about the program before dismissing it offhand.
July 16th, 2006 at 6:42 pm
Hey Liz — Thanks for your comment :) Perhaps I should’ve made this more clear in the post itself, but this post is one of a 3-part series (thus the “part III” in the post title).
So the part that looks specifically at the CAFE practices documents were in part I — and yes, I did actually slog through that and various other long documents about CAFE practices.
One of the main issues with CAFE practices is that very few of the criteria — especially the environmental criteria — are mandatory.
Yes, I’m aware that certification is a cost to the farmer. And while I do think that we need to make fair trade certification a less costly process for the farmer, I do think that certification IS important — otherwise, it’s really tough for the consumer to know that a certain coffee’s organically grown or fairly traded — and choose to support those practices. You might be interested in reading about the certification challenges right now, if you’re concerned about pushing to make certification a valuable and meaningful process for both the farmer and the consumer.
SCS is indeed the org that audits CAFE practices. However, SCS is NOT a certifier — it doesn’t set the standards; it simply verifies that Starbucks followed the company’s own standards. Again, this is covered in part I.
While all of us here I think are trying to combat faceless coffee, I think you’re totally off in thinking that the demand for transparancy was an “innovation” that happened with CAFE practices. Fair trade companies were the ones that set standards to put a face on the issue; Starbucks is trying to piggy back on that — while trying to water down those standards.
June 27th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Soft, consumer led initiatives will do almost nothing to alleviate the U.S. Government led world economic model that keeps americans and a few of their allies wealthy beyond belief and keeps an ever increasing third world “slave-class” on hand to produce cheap goods.
Fairtrade is a feel good band-aid that is being applied to a cardiac patient needing a full transplant. CAFE practices are a PR move for credibility by a company courting the organic cotton buying prius driving eletist american consumer (the most pampered, well fed and celf centered cunsumers ever seen on planet earth for all time) The only real solution (not that it will ever happen) is a full Embargo of all U.S. (and its allies) goods and services by the rest of the world.