Comments on: A monkey for the fair trade movement

By: Cliff

Cliff — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 18:17:47 +0000

I had an interesting conversation with the Fair Trade people. Monkey and Son’s (according to them) is NOT a member and seems to be using their label without permission and thus not paying any fees.

Hmmmmm

By: Andrea

Andrea — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Okay, I’m sold. I thought I had my place to buy coffee all figured out. I order from a small grower in Hawaii -a family that has a small farm, does the work themselves, and direct markets. I’ll still support them, because…. I know them. But, once I found out that Monkey & son supports grassroos bicycling, too… I was sunk. I must buy coffee here. I’ll order the velvet whatever today!

Thanks for the link!

By: BlondebutBright

BlondebutBright — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Hi! You’ve hooked me on your missions. I was in Caribou Coffee this morning, and quizzed the sales guy on their one coffee type (Rainforest) that was fair trade certified. He said that some of the other types are also fair trade, but that someone (he wasn’t sure if it was Caribou or the farmers) couldn’t afford the certification. It would be Caribou (the company) paying for the certification, correct? I would hate to hear that the farmers couldn’t afford it so therefore they miss out.

Do you know how much such a certification does cost?

By: Siel

Siel — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Andrea -- Once you taste the coffee, you'll be sunk further :)

BbB -- Ah -- Yes -- There are cost issues with certification. It's a little complicated, but here's the short version. Since 2004, the farmers have had to pay to get certified through FLO, the international organization that does the certification. This costs, um, like over a couple thou -- a good chunk of change -- especially for struggling farmers (see this post for more deets on this).

The certifying organizations, however, say that before they instituted the fees, FLO had probs with too many unserious farmers asking for certification inspections without being committed to it -- which unnecessarily sapped a lot of FLO's resources -- Thus the fees. The certifying orgs do point out that, once certified, the farms can make back that money within a year.

The coffee companies too then have to get fair trade licensed, which is a completely separate process. Basically, for a product to have the fair trade sticker, everyone in the production chain has to have been certified and licensed. For US companies, this licensing is done by TransFair, who I'll be talking with tomorrow, BTW. It costs between 5 and 10 cents a pound of coffee for the US companies.

So yes, certification, as of now, is not without its issues, financial and otherwise. The question is -- How do we go about remedying these issues? In my view, blowing off TransFair is not the answer...

By: George

George — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Well, Siel picked me as her choice for the Starbucks Challenge! I'm honored.

My prize was a 2 lb bag of Monkey & Son Velvet Hammer fair trade organic coffee, and I must say, it's pretty tasty. I'm no connoiseur, so I can't give you a very detailed description, but I can tell you that my mom (who drinks alot of coffee) enjoyed it as well.

It has a strong taste and aroma, but not bitter, and it was great with the french vanilla creamer that mom drinks with all her coffee. If I ever bought coffee for home use (I usually just go out for it), I'd be glad to buy Monkey & Sons.