We’ve come a long way since Campaign Coffee!!

posted at 1:28pm, 25 Jan 10 by Alex [ 5 comments ]

Last Saturday I was lucky enough to be able to attend a conference organised by the London Fairtrade Diocese Campaign, and hosted by St Stephen’s church in West London. It was a full programme with the theme of Transforming Lives through Fairtrade, and featured some high profile speakers from the Fairtrade Movement as well as John Bell, a very well respected member of the Iona Community, who’s written hymns and books, contributes regularly to BBC Radio 4’s Thought For The Day and has an amazing knowledge of international music – as I discovered in the afternoon!

John has been involved in the trade justice movement for longer than I have lived – and was reflecting about the early days when he sold ‘campaign coffee’ – renowned more for the ethos than quality!

John Bell at Transforming Lives through Fairtrade conference

He made a very thought provoking speech about Global Trade and Global Warming, where he lamented the way people now only seem to measure the financial impact of items, rather than the wider costs in terms of resource. He feels that we have entered an ‘age of entitlement’ which leads to relentless consumption of resource and questioned if people and the environment are actually able to afford the cheapness that we have come to expect in this modern society where we have instant access to knowledge but not necessarily the wisdom to benefit from it!
He does feel that Fairtrade can help to address some of the negative impacts the developing world that the international markets contribute to, and we heard from Barbara Crowther, Director of Communications and Policy at the Fairtrade Foundation about how the scale of Fairtrade has grown significantly over the 15 years they have existed in the UK, and the challenge they face of balancing the mainstreaming of Fairtrade (Nestle’s KitKat and Starbucks and Cadburys etc) with the importance of supporting pioneering 100% Fairtrade brands like Cafédirect and Divine Chocolate.
After a ‘Working Lunch’ we were energised by Catherine Brogan, a performance poet, who described herself as the ‘next generation of Fairtrade campaigner’ treated us to some lively poetry recitals, rounded off with her latest composition which is the most compelling argument I’ve heard to buy Fairtrade so far – you can read it here, but without a strong Irish accent you’ll struggle to make it rhyme!
The afternoon consisted of hymns from around the world, lead by John Bell, with presentations from leading 100% Fairtrade brands Divine Chocolate and Cafédirect. Sophi Tranchell MBE, Managing Director of Divine Chocolate and Chair of London Fairtrade Campaign presented to us the whirlwind history of Divine Chocolate, and described some of the inspiring impacts they have seen since working with suppliers and shareholders, the Kuapa Kokoo co-operative in Ghana.

I then had 10 minutes to speak about Cafédirect. We have been in business for almost 20 years, and the story of how we were formed is very really genuine and very refreshing, particularly in these days of corporate takeovers and multinational companies creating their own stories of authenticity. You can read more about it here. Cafédirect’s growth in our early days was driven by real grass roots campaigners, who bought our coffee from church halls, Oxfam stores and community centers, and campaigned to supermarkets to stock us. Our first big listing was in 1994 – and the rest is history….
We’ve got a great video ‘I am Cafédirect’, it gives a real taste of the people who spend their time, effort and expertise growing coffee, tea and cocoa that goes into our hot drinks, and did show it on Saturday (available on YouTube too). Cafédirect is all about building communities, both in grower co-operatives in Latin America, Africa and Asia, but also back here in the UK – and Fairtrade Fortnight is a great time to get involved!

Host a Cafedirect Tea Party this Fairtrade Fortnight!

We are currently working hard to create Tea Party Kits that you can all use in your communities over Fairtrade Fortnight, and beyond to get together over a cuppa, bake some cakes using Fairtrade ingredients and have a great time! It’s also an excellent way to demonstrate to the unconverted that some Fairtrade products can be of the highest quality!
We’ll be taking orders for the Tea Party Kits at the beginning of February, but in the meantime you can join our Facebook event and sign up to be a Friend of Cafédirect to find out more…

A BIG thank you to Fran from the London Fairtrade Diocese Campaign Steering Group for organising the big day, traidcraft and Shared Interest for coming along and everybody else for their energy and enthusiasm!!

Comments

Cafédirect HQ says:

February 2, 2010 at 6:10 pm

It is definitely not our intention to mislead people and we don’t believe that this campaign does that at all. Indeed, the concept of this campaign was presented at a workshop during a Cafédirect Producers Conference in March last year, several months before it was launched. It was presented to 38 grower representatives from 11 countries for their feedback. We took onboard their input and incorporated their stories into the advertising campaign.

Growers are at the very heart of our business. We work in partnership with them, buying directly from them and not from a Fairtrade register or through middlemen at an auction. Two of the nine board members of Cafédirect plc are growers, elected by their peers in Africa and Latin America to represent their interests. As such, they have both a voice and voting rights on all company decisions. Growers own 5% of the shares, however over 50% of the profits are reinvested into their businesses. Other companies who offer their producer partners greater shareholding, do not reinvest the same degree of profits, so this is just a different business model.

How these profits are reinvested is decided entirely by the growers via the Cafédirect Producers Foundation, so these are their profits to reinvest as most needed in their organisations. The Board of the Cafédirect Producers Foundation is 100% producer governed.

Cafédirect considers growers to be very much part of our business and in turn we are part of theirs. Growers are not simply suppliers to us and we do not operate like any other coffee, tea or cocoa company. The purpose of our business is to benefit growers, we are a growers organisation, working with growers for growers.
Ryan says:

February 1, 2010 at 7:07 pm

Sirs, I am confused by your new marketing campaign. You speak in first person, as you were a farmer. “We are the growers”. Seems to me that farmers own a very small percentage of Cafe Direct, so how do justify your claims? I think you are middlemen, albeit generous ones.

To the point: what precise percentage of the company is owned by farmers? How many votes do farmers have on Cafe Direct’s board of directors? Who owns the controlling shares? Probably not farmers, in which case, you are not the growers. You are misleading people that trust you.
Transforming Lives: London Fairtrade Conference : The Diocese of London says:

January 30, 2010 at 6:18 pm

[...] For a transcript of John Bell’s talk see http://fairtrade.london.anglican.org and Cafedirect blog: http://brewing.cafedirect.co.uk/2010/01/25/we%e2%80%99ve-come-a-long-way-since-campaign-coffee/. [...]
Mike Brady says:

January 26, 2010 at 12:24 pm

How to balance mainstreaming Fairtrade and growing Fairtrade as an alternative trading system is complex.

While Nestlé has dropped its previous outspoken opposition to Fairtrade as a system in branding KitKat and earlier Partners’ Blend coffee, these are very much niche products. While some may argue they are Trojan Horses and will gradually transform the business model of companies such as Nestlé, the reality that Nestlé continues to be a major cause of the difficulties in the cocoa and coffee sectors cannot be ignored. Nor can the way it has used its Partners’ Blend coffee to try to divert criticism of the impact of its coffee trading and the way its Fairtrade KitKat is being used to a similar end. Indeed, a UK Government Minister for International Development used Fairtrade KitKat to bat away a question about Nestlé’s impact in developing countries at a recent UN press conference.
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2009/12/nestle-kitkat-minister.html

This means that the impact of awarding the Fairtrade mark to Nestlé products has an impact beyond the Fairtrade movement itself. While undoubtedly the 6,000 farmers supplying cocoa for Fairtrade KitKat are benefiting, I can only wonder whether it will have a positive or negative impact on the millions outside the scheme and the long-running campaign to have Nestlé deliver on its promise to end child slavery in its cocoa supply chain.

Certainly from the point of view of the campaign to hold Nestlé to account over its baby food marketing it costs us time and money to respond to the ‘Nestlé must be alright now’ type of coverage and comments the award generates. While Nestlé has added the Fairtrade logo to KitKat in the UK, around the world it is rolling out its new marketing strategy of promoting infant formula with logos claiming it ‘protects’ babies – it does not, babies fed on it are more likely to become sick than breastfed babies and, in conditions of poverty, to die. Nestlé knows this, but is refusing to remove the logos. Thanks to the Nestlé boycott, I am confident we will eventually succeed, and to this end Fairtrade KitKat has been added to the Nestlé boycott list. You can see the ‘protect’ logo on a tin of formula from Malawi, one of the world’s poorest countries, at:
http://www.babymilkaction.org/CEM/cemjuly09.html
Sally says:

January 25, 2010 at 2:23 pm

nice post Alex. great that you put the link to your brilliant video clip too, it is fantastic. Looking forward to seeing one of the tea party kits at a tea party near me!

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