What is Sustainable Coffee and How Does it Affect My Wake Cup?

Gourmet coffee lovers have been seeing a few new terms in thelocal premium coffee shop as they file past the seasonal retaildisplays of roasted whole bean bagged coffees. Phrases includeeco-friendly, organic, shade grown, fair trade and certifiedsustainable. Most often those beans seem to the casual buyer tobe simply more expensive than the corporate mega-brands.

But these few phrases represent far more than at first glance,including economic and social gains for the growing regions andfarmers, harvesters and processors of green coffee beans at thelocal level. Sustainable coffee means premium prices and qualitycoffee due to organic farming practices, fair market payment forbeans to local growers and quality controls being adopted by the"certified" coffee brands.

Those premium coffee prices reflect growing concerns worldwideof paying fair wages to growers, using more expensiveecologically friendly organic farming practices, better pay fortraditionally underpaid harvesters and processing workers andstrict quality controls being adopted for "certified sustainablecoffees."

Daniele Giovannucci consults with governments, internationalagencies, and businesses on coffee markets and productionstrategies to improve competitiveness and support innovativeenvironmental and rural poverty reduction work. Giovannucci hasauthored exhaustive studies, including the 2003, "The State ofSustainable Coffee Report - A Study of Twelve Major Markets."

http://www.cec.org/files/PDF/ECONOMY/CoffeeSurvey_EN.pdf

This study discusses coffee market forces in Europe and Japanand the growth of sustainable coffee around the world,estimating that fair trade, organic, and eco-friendly coffeesrepresent less than 2 percent of coffee consumption in developedmarkets.

Another Giovannucci authored study, "Sustainable Coffee Surveyof the North American Specialty Coffee Industry," he estimatesthe Global market for sustainable coffee to be approximately$565 million retail for over a million 60 kilo (about 132pounds) bags of green coffee beans.

http://www.eftafairtrade.org/Document.asp?DocID=391&tod=21534

It is estimated that growers of certified sustainable coffeescan nearly double their income from otherwise depressed coffeeprices. So economically challenged third world countries seesmall farmers adopting organic growing techniques as a ticketout of poverty and subsistence. Corporate buyers are attractedto sustainable growers by consumer goodwill and health concernsrelated to those organically grown coffees. This leads todubious claims by some of the corporate coffee representativesand has lead to the need for certification authorities.

One group, Fairtrade Labeling Organizations International (FLO)has been active in monitoring and certifying, auditing andverifying standards for sustainable coffees. Another, namedTransfair USA, carries on similar activities in the Americancoffee market. Consumers are justifiably confused when manyterms are applied to sustainable coffees and fail todifferentiate between organic, eco-friendly, fair trade andsustainable terms.

Premium prices are sometimes supported by certification,labeling and monitoring by third-party organizations andsometimes by local governments such as the "Jamaica CoffeeIndustry Board." But some labeling is simply slick sales and PRby greedy corporations seeking premium prices for average coffeebeans, so support for labeling initiatives and independentcertification is growing.

Fair Trade and sustainable coffees are seeing increasingproduction in Central and South American growing regions, mostnotably in Mexico and Peru. Columbia has seen some pressure andattempts to divert production of cocaine with coffee crops forthe fair trade market with little major success to report sofar. Uganda, Tanzania and Ethiopia are big participants insustainable coffees in Africa while East Timor, India andIndonesia are major supporters of sustainable coffee in Asia.

With the North American coffee market dominated by multinationalgiants Sara Lee, Kraft and Procter & Gamble, little interest hasbeen shown in adopting sustainable coffee by major corporatecoffee producers. Meanwhile, Brazil and Vietnam, the world's No.1 and No. 2 coffee producers, respectively are flooding themarket with poor quality beans and driving down coffee prices.

But major grocery chains are seeing demand for sustainablecoffee and may adopt fair trade and organic coffees to sellnationwide at Safeway, Kroger and Albertson's stores. Increasesin availability, demand and awareness of sustainable coffee areleading to more of the same in a spiraling increase for fairtrade organic and shade coffees in premium markets. Somesustainable coffees are even finding their way into instantcoffees, but the vast majority of the sustainable market is inpremium and specialty markets.

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Tastes of The World coffee companyhttp://www.tastesoftheworld.net focuses on specialtygourmet coffees which are not readily available in the UnitedStates. Rare Gourmet Coffee from Jamaica Blue Mountain to KopiLuwak exotic and fine Italian Espressos from Illy and Marcafe aswell as a selection of premium Puerto Rican coffees includingCafe Tres Picachos.

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