I like the dialog above and find it very useful. I agree with your position in terms of Starbucks marketing position regarding C.A.F.E. I believe corporations should participate in wholly independent scrutiny of their practices especially when those practices have wide reaching effects on the world as a whole.

However, I travel quite a bit for my work and I will take every opportunity to sample local independent coffee roasters when I can find them. I am attracted to them for their independence but I am often offended by their position regarding Starbucks. If they broadcast their opinion of Starbucks lack of Fair Trade compliance I will typically ask them about their employee pension plan, vacation plan, medical benefits and community involvement… typically that’s when the crickets chime in.

Don’t get me wrong… I am equally not shy to call out my local Starbucks barista when I get an earful of the C.A.F.E. policy. BS is BS no matter where you are.

My wife and I love local organic and fair trade coffee companies (Camano Island Coffee Roasters). I use to be a fan of Diedrich’s when I lived in Orange County CA and by the way they sold their store locations to Starbucks NOT the brand or the coffee. The brand was purchased by Green Mountain Coffee Roasters in 2009. That information by no means should be taken as support or promotion of Green Mountain Coffee Roaster.

On a side note; Martin Deidrich now runs Kean Coffee in Newport Beach, CA and is fair trade certified and all sorts of other things to be locally and globally responsible.

Thank you for bringing this conversation to the light. By the way, I’m not an employee of Starbucks, never have been and employee of Starbucks and have no family members who are currently employed by Starbucks.

In terms of the big 4 — I mentioned these because together, they control 70-80% of the coffee sold in the US. That doesn’t mean I’m unaware that these are more diversified companies; I was simply pointing out that in terms of size and clout within the coffee biz, Starbucks — which I believe makes up 1-2% of the coffee trade — is not the biggest.

Yes, I agree that Starbucks’ decisions, simply due to its size, have bigger impacts than those of smaller companies. But I’m bothered by your willingness to “lower the bar,” in a way, for bigger companies, simply because their tiny decisions may have bigger impacts due to scale. The bigger the company, the less % of socio-environmental consciousness needed?

When you compare apples with apples and look at sales from coffee-related operations, I doubt if Kraft, P&G, and Nestle compare as “domestic” competitors; it’s like comaparing GE with Nortel Networks because they both produce electronic products for retail sale.

Secondly, the other companies cited (FB, GM, etc.) pale in comparison to the operating revenues with which to “contribute” to anything. For example, today’s operating income for Farmer Bros. is ($2,965M), Diedrich is ($9,029M), and Caribou is ($4,062M) – all losses. Nothing there to support Fair Trade of anything.

Diedrich (as of this morning) trades under the symbol DDRX and has none of Starbucks executives listed anywhere on its insider list. Where do you find the information suggesting Starbucks owns Diedrich?

Sara Lee is a food products corporation that sells coffee under the “Superior Coffee” label. That, I believe, is a wholesale distributorship, not retail sales to the consumer.

Green Mountain has operating income of $18M compared with $800M for Starbucks.

Now really, Siel, who do you think is doing more for Fair Trade? If Green Mountain contributes 5% of EBITDA to Fair Trade and Starbucks contributes 1%. who’s doing more good? The $8M from Starbucks or the $900K from Green Mountain?

Oh, but if you want to play activist, you shout “Lookie, lookie, Starbucks contributes a far less percentage of their operating revenues than does company A, B, or C.

Again…get away from the emotion and engage this audience with supportable data.

No other company meets those 2 criteria. Some never really use fair trade / sustainable issues to improve their image (Peets, Farmers Bros, etc). Others actually make consistent strides toward improving fair trade commitments (Green Mountain, etc). Among larger companies, Starbucks talks the talk without walking the walk. Diedrich stores were bought up by Starbucks, BTW.

Also — Starbucks is not the biggest coffee company, so if size is all activists cared about, they wouldn’t go after Starbucks. Kraft, Nestle, P&G and Sara Lee are the “big four” — much bigger than Starbucks.

This kind of pressure (and press) seems socially responsible on the surface, but it loses its credibility when its directed only toward the largest company and not all companies at the same time. In other words, the stock value of the other competitors isn’t harmed as long as the protests attack Starbucks and leave everyone else alone. If the unfair trade practices exist within the Industry, then the protests should be directed against the Industry…not just the largest company within the Industry. I happen to believe that either all companies are innocent or they are all guilty.

What do you think?

Also, I do agree that if this entire issue is to be credible over the long-term, somebody needs to get out and investigate what happens to all of the money as it flows from the U.S. market and out to the farmers. I would like to know the percentage of funds that are siphoned off by governments and middlemen, who specifically these intermediaries are by name, and what percent of each dollar actually is placed into the creased, wrinkled hands of the poor farmer. I am seeking more fact, and less emotion.