Check what's under your froth ...
Starbucks has been serving a fair-trade coffee in both brewed and whole bean form since 2002. But fair trade represented just 1.6% of the three hundred million lbs of coffee purchased by the multinational in the last financial year. The 'Starbucks challenge' was recently launched by a couple of bloggers in the US, encouraging all customers to ask for fair trade coffee - responses ranged from, 'Yes, Ma'am', to 'fair what?'
Marks & Spencer serve Fairtrade as standard and at no extra cost in their Café Revive coffee shops. One of their main suppliers is a group of farms in Honduras.
Pret a Manger only serve fair-trade filter and decaf coffee. The rest - i.e. all those cappuccinos and lattes - is not fair trade although the supplier works with the ETI (Ethical Trading Initiative) to ensure that workers conditions are improved and meet international standards.
Costa offers a fair trade option on all its coffees in its high street cafes. The money generated for the growers has been poured back into community projects, like a women's' education project in Mexico.
Progreso are a chain of coffee bars set up by Oxfam. The coffee growers each own a share of the business and therefore profit directly from its success. 156 Portobello Road, London W 10 and 5 Earlham Street, WC2.
What to drink at home
Nestlé have recently launched a fair-trade instant coffee - some campaigners have embraced the move, while others see it as a marketing ploy, accusing the company of jumping on the ethical bandwagon and overstating the impact it will have on its coffee producers.
Cafédirect have set up an online shop to help the Mexican growers who were hit by Hurricane Stan last year. They are donating an extra 50p per pack to the growers. cafedirect.co.uk.
Traidcraft plc is one the leading fair trade campaigners, working work with more than 100 producers in over 30 countries: the coffee beans come from small co-operatives, traidcraft.co.uk
Tesco stock 25 fair-trade coffee brands, three of which are their own label. However they do sell over 100 different coffee products. Many campaigners also suggest that because most fair-trade products sell for a premium, all the supermarkets stand to make a greater profit on these, and consequently campaign for consumers to buy coffee from individual producers and independent shops instead.
Asda sell over 120 coffee products, but have their own brand of freeze-dried and ground coffees from Colombia and Ethiopia, making up 12 Fairtrade coffee products.
Co-op switched their entire range of coffee to Fairtrade at the end of 2003.
Morrisons stock its own brand of Fairtrade organic coffee from Guatemala, plus 11 others, but it's only 12% of the coffee on its shelves.
Lavazza and Lyons Original Coffee support the Rainforest Alliance. As Barbera Crowther of the Fairtrade Organisation says, 'It's a great sustainability scheme, but it shouldn't be confused with Fairtrade because it doesn't guarantee the price for producers.'
Waitrose have five different brands of fair-trade or ethical coffee making up 15 per cent of its coffee range, including Rwenzori from Uganda (founder Andrew Rugasira). The deal was the first direct partnership between an African producer and a British supermarket - the company is based on fair trade principles, but its operation goes beyond the requirements of fair trade. rwenzoricoffee.com.
