Eat Ethically Is Fairtrade any good?

Date Published:

28/02/2008

Jeremy Torz and Steven Macatonia were suppliers to Seattle Coffee Company before starting Union Hand Roasted, a speciality coffee company with a strong focus on corporate and social responsibility. Charlie Cottrell went to meet them to find out whether Fairtrade really means a better deal for farmers and how it could be improved

You've produced coffee for the Fairtrade and non-Fairtrade market, how do they compare?

Jeremy: Even before we went Fairtrade with Union Hand Roasted we created direct relationships with individual small holders and family farms. To sustain that you have to pay more whether it be to grow better quality beans or encourage people to adopt better working practices.

Which is more important, social conscience or business?

Steven: Once you've seen the positive effect paying a fair price has, how it changes and improves livelihoods, there's an obligation to do more of that. But we still continue to underscore that by focussing on the quality of the coffee.

Jeremy: You can't just buy coffee off people because they're impoverished. That isn't sustainable. We have to sell high quality coffee because that's the only thing that the consumer's going to enjoy and come back for, cup after cup. That has to be the driving component.

There's an economic argument that the coffee market is flooded and the best way to improve the price farmers get for their beans is to reduce the number of farms producing coffee.

Jeremy: We're not able to say to farmers "don't grow more coffee" it's their livelihood. We believe that the best future strategy for farmers is based on quality not quantity. Most farmers never taste coffee as a drink. They're kept in the dark about quality variations so they can't demand a better price for higher quality bean. If you're credited as a Fairtrade producer it doesn't matter if your quality is outstanding or indifferent you get the same badge, we're pushing for that to change.

If Fairtrade is so great, why aren't all farmers Fairtrade farmers?

Steven: Fairtrade is limited as you are unable to work with estate farms, only co-operatives. In the beginning this was to give a competitive advantage to the most marginalised. But to be a co-operative you have to be pretty savvy, well-organised and well-structured. Lots of the individual producers don't have that know-how.

Jeremy: We have selected and found loose groups of farmers who aren't yet well organised enough to become co-operatives. We buy their coffee and it's fantastic. But we can't label that coffee as Fairtrade even though we apply fair trade principles in terms of pricing.

What does Fairtrade do well?

Jeremy: To give Fairtrade their due ,it is the only scheme that gives a minimum price to farmers.

Fairtrade was conceived as a safety-net to protect farmers in case the bottom fell out of the coffee market, so way back at the beginning it offered security to people that were economically vulnerable. It also raised awareness of the poor deal coffee farmers were getting and created a market for the consumer to change that. But it was not ever intended to be the endpoint in terms of coffee pricing. Saying "I pay the Fairtrade minimum for my coffee beans" is like saying "I pay all my staff minimum wage" and thinking that's a good thing.

Do we as consumers have a responsibility to question the Fairtrade system?

Jeremy: It takes a pushy consumer to know which questions to ask. All coffee companies who have a Fairtrade product claim they do the same thing and from the packaging it's really hard to distinguish what's behind that.

Fairtrade has developed as a badge system that people can identify, buy the product and abrogate responsibility. Just because one product carries the Fairtrade mark doesn't mean that the company has a responsible social ethos. Fair trading is a wide area that is complicated but if you want to find out a little bit more about it, do so and make an informed decision.

If I pay 10p more for a Fairtrade latte, does the farmer get that 10p?

Steven: When you buy a cup of coffee in a coffee shop you're paying for the retail space so it's misleading to equate that with what farmers are getting.

Jeremy: Despite us going into coffee bars more than ever the amount of coffee we're consuming isn't going up because we're buying espresso based drinks. There's hardly any coffee in a latte, it's all milk.

A better comparison is on the supermarket shelf. The price difference between a packet of really good gourmet coffee like we're making and a generic, non Fairtrade coffee is a few pence. If consumers really want to make a contribution then they should buy coffee and brew it at home.

Read our introduction to Fairtrade What is Fairtrade?

Find out which foods made our top ten Fairtrade products and which were our favourite Fairtrade chocolates