🎧 Pushing good coffee Beyond merely fair in search of ethical trade
Walking down the supermarket aisle in search of coffee, I have this warm inner glow. If I choose a pack that boasts the Fair Trade logo, or that of any other third-party certifying agency, I’ll be doing good just by paying a little more for something that I am going to buy anyway. The extra I pay will find its way to the poor farmers who grow the coffee, and together enlightened coffee drinkers can make their lives better. But it seems I’m at least somewhat mistaken. Certified coffee is certainly better than nothing, but it isn’t doing as much good as I fondly imagine. And the price premium I pay could be doing a lot more.
In this episode I hear about coffee that’s more ethical than fair, and about some of the ways in which Fair Trade falls short.
I came upon this episode via Jeremy Cherfas’ response to two podcasts exploring coffee: In Our Time and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.
I hope you enjoyed it. Just to let you know, I’ve just finished brewing another episode on coffee, to be published noon GMT tomorrow.
This podcast dives into the history of chocolate and its relationship with child labour. I was intrigued by the way in which some companies will purchase fair trade for a single product creating the false impression that all their products are made with fair trade chocolate. It reminded me of Jeremy Cherfas’ discussion of ethical coffee.