Time to move on?

Well, I guess it was just a matter of time. Wal-Mart will soon be selling

Fair-Trade Certified coffee in their stores.

What does the Transfair Label mean?

What does it stand for?

What kind of companies use the Transfair Label?

Over the last few months things have not been looking good for Transfair USA. Well...they haven't been looking good if you run a coffee business affiliated with Transfair that is serious about sustainability and social and economic equity. Complaints have been vocalized and ignored. Some folks have given up all together. Many of us have been holding on as tight as we can to an idea that once seemed like the answer and now is beginning to look like another problem. Is it time to move on?
I'm beginning to really think that Transfair doesn't have a place for those who run their businesses the same way they buy their coffee. If coffee at Wal-Mart carries a Tfair label how can you say that the concept of fair trade is not dilluted? Maybe the best thing coffee roasters can do for farmers is create their own transparent buying system that goes beyond Tfair. What else can we do? Sometimes if you want something done right, you've gotta do it yourself.

HEY!! TRANSFAIR!!!!
FAIR TRADE IS MORE THAN COFFEE PRICES!!!!


Fair Trade Certified is dead. Long live fair trade!

Think while you drink.

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Feel East Timor

The recent turmoil in East Timor has really got me thinking about how delicate the coffee chain is. Holding a handfull of green coffee you can almost feel the path the beans have taken. How many hands have touched those same beans?

What is life like for the family that picked the cherries?
The man that pruned the trees?
The woman that sorted at the mill?

Looking at a stack of coffee-filled burlap sacks, you can imagine them piled up in a warehouse far away in a producing country... like East Timor.

What is happening outside that warehouse?

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