Starbucks: The Unintended Target

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A Penny for the Mermaid's Thoughts?

No serious discourse about coffee can be made without discussing the Starbucks phenomenon. Since we of Coffee.net are based in the greater Seattle area, were especially interested in Starbucks role in Black Gold.

Throughout the production of the film, Starbucks was approached several times but declined to participate. Their reaction almost seems to indicate a guilty conscience. Starbucks promotes itself as a champion of fair trade coffee, and yet the fact that Starbucks refused to participate in Black Gold seems a little suspicious.

Are fair trade standards really being met?

The million dollar question that Starbucks was reluctant to answer was the price that they paid per pound to farmers for coffee. After several attempts by us to get the answers directly from Starbucks media relations, they finally divulged that they paid $1.28 per pound of coffee, which is $0.02 more than the certified price of Fair Trade coffee ($1.26/lb).

What was frustrating was that they never specified whether that price was what they paid directly to the farmer or to a middleman. Why not be fully truthful? If Starbucks paid $1.28 per pound for coffee from a middleman like Volcafe, its more than likely that the farmers were paid significantly less than the Fair Trade guaranteed price.