Dear Candace,
Good questions. Lots of people grow our beans—currently we carry coffees from 28 different origins—and as a specialty coffee roaster we do what we can to develop and maintain direct-trade relationships with the farmers who grow our coffees. This means that we will actually go to the country of origin, meet with the farmer and work out a deal for their coffee; and for most of our Central and South American coffees this is the case. It’s a pretty mutually-beneficial setup, too, as we get to see exactly where our beans are coming from and they get to take their money directly, without having to pay a middleman. For our African and Indonesian coffees we’re less able to do this due to trade restrictions in those areas, so we purchase those from a broker who still has to report to us how much they’re paying the farmer for the coffee.
There is an organization called TransFair USA that certifies goods as “Fair Trade,” and everything from our organic line is certified as such (ISU uses our organic Sumatran and Organic Espresso Blend currently, so you’ve maybe tried those). That said, there’s more to the certification process than just presenting what we pay and getting the stamp. All Fair Trade Certified coffees, for example, are required to come from Co-ops so we can’t certify any coffee we buy from one farmer. In any case, though, to buy a good specialty coffee in this day and age you have to be willing to pay above and beyond the fair trade minimum price—there’s just that much competition.
I hope that information helps. It’s a pretty complicated process, but that’s the basic rundown. If you ever have any other questions at all, though, please feel free to ask.
Thanks so much,
Amanda Butler * (aka “Screen Bean”)
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