The purpose of our Ethically Sourced Beans or ESB label is to inform our customers of our practices when sourcing green coffee beans. Our goal with sourcing coffee is to buy outstanding quality coffee at a sustainable price for the grower. We achieve this by purchasing coffee from either Direct Trade, Relationship, or Fairtrade sources.
Direct Trade
We source gourmet coffee of a quality that would ordinarily be too expensive for use in NZ’s extremely competitive and price-sensitive coffee industry. By cutting out all intermediaries, we assume more risk ourselves, and everything we pay goes to the grower.
We only purchase from growers whose permanent employees receive more than the minimum wage in addition to housing and medical benefits, and that don’t employ children.
An example of this is our Salvadoran coffee, from Andreas Giron (whom you may have met while he was here working with us in Auckland). His coffee was placed in the top 60 of El Salvador’s Cup of Excellence 2011. It is a washed coffee from Finca El Nazareth, is Strictly High Grown, and milled to the European Preparation standard.
Relationship Coffee
This is done on the same lines as the Direct Trade, but with one additional party layered in locally. The importer has the relationship with the grower, and our commitment helps maintain that relationship’s economic viability. This method of sourcing is still very efficient and the vast majority of our purchase price goes to the grower.
An example of this is our Vanuatu coffee. This coffee is grown by the INIK co-op of small coffee growers that is in a joint venture with Tanna Coffee Plantations to process the coffee for export. INIK and TCP together decide how the profit is spent. Although it is grown at a lower altitude than the other coffees we source, the unique climatic conditions result in a high quality coffee with wonderful flavour when roasted with skill.
NZ is an extremely important market for Vanuatu coffee and we believe it is important to support our Pacific neighbours. Henrik, whom you may know, visited in August of 2011.
Fairtrade
Fairtrade guarantees a minimum price to growers which was increased in 2011 to USD$3.10 per kg. In addition to the minimum, a Fairtrade premium is paid to the co-operative which is currently set at USD$0.44 per kg. This premium does not go to the grower, but goes to the co-operative and, if there is a surplus from FT’s compliance costs, it is spent on communal initiatives. However, these price guarantees are not very relevant when the commodity price is higher than the FT minimum.
There is no minimum quality standard associated with FT coffee. As only a portion of farmers’ production will be sold via Fairtrade channels, there is an incentive to sell the best coffee for higher prices elsewhere, while filling FT orders with the lower quality remnants. This requires us to be extremely selective with the FT origins we choose to use.
Our organic line is made up exclusively of dual certified Fairtrade and organic (FTO) coffees as is our Unleaded (decaf) blend. There are often a lot more parties in the Fairtrade supply chain than our others, and it is very difficult to accurately assess exactly what percentage of our purchase price goes to the growers.
We currently purchase the following FT Organic origins and these are their FLO (Fairtrade Labelling Organisation) identification certificate numbers:
Ethiopia 3609, Laos 19646, Mandheling 5416, Mexico UDEPOM 3616, Mexico ISMAM 3654, Papua New Guinea 2897, Timor 3626, Decafs 2604 and 3616.
Unfortunately, recently we have been advised that Timor CCT 3626, which we had been purchasing for over 10 years, has allowed its Fairtrade certification to expire.
Mirror, mirror on the wall...
In our opinion, the best way to ensure we are sourcing ethical coffee is to start by procuring high quality green beans while avoiding lower quality commodity coffees that do not attract a quality premium. In short, we want coffees that are fair and excellent.
Unlike other Fairtrade products, coffee is not deemed by Fairtrade to use hired labour and Fairtrade farmers must be small landholders formed into democratically based co-operatives. This would exclude producers like Andreas Giron in El Salvador or the INIK co-op in Vanuatu or the Kalledevarapura Estate in India for example. Fairtrade’s refusal to endorse farmers that are not in democratic co-ops makes comparisons very difficult. It is our view that Fairtrade should introduce a qualitative minimum and expand the type of producer it is willing to certify, as it does with other products like cocoa and tea.
However, Fairtrade does provide a recognisable brand that affords the consumer confidence that there are some minimum standards being met in the production of the coffee. This may be a main driver behind the expansion of Fairtrade, rather than better prices for the producers. To use that recognisable brand or logo, we would have to pay a royalty. This royalty goes to Fairtrade, and not the farmer.
We choose not to use the Fairtrade logo on our bags because it could create the false impression that our non-Fairtrade coffees are not ethically sourced. Hence, our bags carry our own ESB label and provide the opportunity to explain to you our business practices.
The Bottom Line
We have spent years building a reputation for award-winning coffee without a lot of fanfare. Ultimately, consumers need to be able to trust the suppliers in their food chain. We believe our customers, like us, want to know that their enjoyment of a great cup of coffee doesn't come at someone else's suffering. We believe our customers can trust us and can fully enjoy a cup of Altezano.
How we source our coffee is crucial to our competitiveness in New Zealand’s crowded coffee roasting scene, and is one of the policies we practice to ensure we are behaving in a socially responsible manner.