(This is part of a series on coffee. See Round 1 on Fair Trade and Round 2 on Direct Trade)
Overall kindtrade score: ****
Overall affordability score: $$
Two-degrees of separation: The Farmer. You.
One of the Pachamama co-op farmers.
In a goal to eliminate the middle man and gain more transparency in the coffee supply chain, what can be better than buying coffee directly from the grower? There are several sites online that make this possible:
- Ethical Coffee Chain. If you buy from ECC (ships to the US and Canada), you purchase coffee directly from a single farmer and receive updates on that farmer’s operations. The first farmer to have partnered with ECC is Gus in Nicaragua. Gus’s farm employs about 400 people annually, and partnership with ECC has thus far allowed him to set up health care and education programs. Coffee from ECC is $16/lb (approx. 64 cups or 25 cents per cup).
- Pachamama’s Coffee Co-op. Pachamama’s Coffee Co-op offers organic coffee sourced directly from farmer coops to consumers. Pachamama farmers receive much more per pound of coffee than the typical grower:
“The typical grower of Fair Trade coffee, he told me, was paid about $2.18 per pound in 2010. The Pachamama Coop collects about $8.50 per pound, about half of which is returned directly to growers; the other half is invested in the business, which ultimately benefits the growers.”
In order to purchase Pachamama coffee, you buy a subscription. Coffee on a subscription can range from $20/lb to $16/lb (depending on the length of a subscription and the quantity of coffee recieved per month).
- Crop to Cup sells green coffee beans directly to roasters (or adventurous consumers). A buyer can purchase coffee directly from selected growers around the world. When you click on each coffee type, you can read more about the coffee, its flavor, and information about its farmers and their methods. C2C also facilitates connections between roasters and growers. Interested roasters can start programs in local coffee communities or join C2C on trips to origin sites. Coffee is $12 to $13 for 2lb bags of green coffee (smallest quantity sold). In order to purchase, you may have to contact them directly, as I encountered issues with their login/registration.
Direct purchase is a relatively affordable option. It is an especially good option for an office or workplace, as many sites that offer direct purchase offer subscriptions with significant discounts for a longer subscription length and a greater volume of coffee.
More Information:
- Direct Purchase: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2011/06/01/coffee-farmers-eliminate-middle-man
- An Interview with Crop to Cup: http://sprudge.com/crop-to-cup-59702.html
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