Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed the article. I do consider education about the advantages of direct trade to be a primary goal of my involvement in coffee–beyond the pure enjoyment of the beverage, of course. Direct trade and Fair Trade both have many strides to make, but fortunately we can already see progress and there’s more reason to be optimistic overall than not. All we can do is keep educating consumers and trust them to make the right choices.

-a

A conversation today -at a local specialty coffee shop prompted me to research the direct trade vs. fair trade debate. So when I arrived at home, your article came up in my web search

Direct trade sounds really great. And I believe this is the ideal way for commerce.

However…..
What consumers are calling for change is in big coffee company practices: Kraft, Nestle, Proctor & Gamble. These huge Multi-National Corporations are in the business of profit! And these companies operate in the profit interest of their shareholders FIRST. The livelihoods of growers falls lower on the list of corporate ethics and responsibility.

Now how do consumers get corporate companies to act fairly? There’s only one way -the power of their spending. Governments bend too easily in favour of multinational corporations -so we can’t look in that direction.

Consumers have become aware of unfair trade… and are clearly calling for change. Direct trade and fair trade are both solutions to solve the world-wide crisis of farmers going further into poverty.

People are upset with world wide poverty – thus the push to “Make Poverty History” etc…

You’ve certainly pointed out some weaknesses in the Transfair FT organization, however these bugs no doubt can be worked out. If Transfair doesn’t work them out, someone else will.

The idea of helping consumers know that direct trade coffee is in fact “direct trade” is an absolute must in order for this movement to carry forward successfully. I suggest Direct Trade people band together and come up with solid ideas -because consumers want to know they are caring about farmers and their livelihoods.

I thank you for taking time to educate. It is evident that you are a part of the movement amongst coffee consumers who want to support growers and their livelihoods. After all they are human with basic living needs just like us.

The issue here is respect for your fellow human being. Who can blame consumers who desire to respect other people’s livelihoods?

Aric, you are in the industry and have connections already. You obviously have the smarts to put together thoughtful arguments. So I encourage you to take this further! Please continue to help consumers recognize direct trade in greater ways.

As I said before, ‘Direct trade sounds really great. And I believe this is the ideal way for commerce.’

All the best!
Kris

It’s definitely a tough battle from a PR standpoint, and it’s really frustrating to feel like you’re competing with something you at least support the idea of.

In my old shop we phased DT coffees in gradually, and carried POS brochures on the estate coffees (usually provided by the estates themselves). Don’t forget that your baristas are also your sales force so make sure they know enough about the qualities of the DT coffees to be able to talk them up to your customers. Our phasing was pretty successful, but it was a very slow process.

If you’ve already made the jump to full DT, consider carrying one or two FT coffees just to get people in the door. If the quality’s there on the DT coffees, I can say from experience that many of them will eventually switch over without you having to do anything else except make and serve great coffee.

-a

I agree FT has been positive but DT offers many more advantages to both producer and consumer.

Please contact me if you have any advice on how to educate my customers. Thanks

I agree wholeheartedly that FT’s biggest advantage for the consumer is the fact that they don’t have to examine it closely. It would be nice if there was as quick a way to “know” direct trade coffees when you saw them, but of course then you’d need another logo/organization like TransFair and we’d be back where we started. Someone smarter than me will have to come up with a solution…

The slow adoption of FT despite years of effort and millions of dollars spent (at a loss) is a good argument against it. I do think it’s got a place, but that place needs to be rethought.

We do run a different FT mark for coffees. You can see it in Part 1 of this article.

-a