Vermont Coffee Company Looks at Fair Trade Alternative

Author: Liz Lathey

Green Mountain Coffee recently signed a 10-year agreement to sell its Fair Trade coffee under the label of Newman's Own Organic Fair Trade Certified coffees.
The harvest of Fair Trade coffee is based on a partnership between North American coffee consumers and coffee producers in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. It provides farmers a better environment in which to produce coffee, guaranteeing a minimum price of $1.26 per pound — which equals a living wage, credit at fair prices and a long-term partnership. Fair payments for coffee allow more investments in health care, education, environmental causes and economic independence in the producing countries.
Green Mountain Coffee, which is based in Waterbury, Vt., offers over 75 different flavors of coffee, and has been recognized in Forbes magazine for the last three years as "One of the 200 Best Small Companies in America."
Green Mountain Coffee hopes that its partnership with Newman's Own will help it produce better Fair Trade Certified organic coffee. The U.S. Fair Trade certification organization, TransFair USA, has expressed its satisfaction with this new alliance, which will make Fair Trade coffee more available to the general public, and therefore help struggling coffee farmers and their families.
Although retail prices for coffee have remained high in the last few years, small farmers were paid as low as 50 cents per pound in August 2001. With the development of a Fair Trade coffee organization, small farmers now can profit from the popularity of their coffee. There are currently about 100 companies that offer Fair Trade certified coffee, including Starbucks, Tully's, Peet's, Equal Exchange and Diedrich. Since Fair Trade coffee growers lack the capital to have large farms or use chemical fertilizers and pesticides, they help the environment by growing small plots of organic coffee.
Green Mountain Coffee established an Environmental Committee in 1989 to help ensure that its coffee is produced with proper respect for workers and the land. It also sends employees to the farms that supply its coffee beans to evaluate management and coffee quality. Growers use natural techniques such as terracing and composting to produce these Fair Trade coffees. In addition, no pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers are used.
The new coffees Green Mountain produces in conjunction with Newman's Own include "Nell's Breakfast Blend," "Newman's Special Blend," "Newman's Special Decaf," "Newman's French Roast," "Café Almond Biscotti" and "Columbian Especial." After the agreement, the chief executive officer of Green Mountain Coffee, Bob Stiller, commented, "This special selection of Fair Trade Certified organic coffees brings together two companies whose shared vision will benefit both coffee farmers around the world and nonprofit organizations in local communities." At least 5 percent of Green Mountain Coffee's annual pre-tax profits are donated to social initiatives. Newman's Own shares a similar goal, donating all post-tax profits to educational and charitable organizations.