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Our business model is built on a concept of justice not charity, it's right there in our motto "Not just a cup, but a just cup" we say.

But is that what the broad Fair Trade conversation is about?

The majority of our coffees are Fair Trade certified, but our conversation about it as a model for change often highlights poverty and barriers to access of basic needs and resources - like clean water, mosquito nets, and good roads. That conversation very quickly becomes one about privilege. We say that by paying a higher price we prevent the perpetuation of entrenched cycles of poverty and we contribute to more ethical trade. While not untrue, that is a conversation about charity. Paying more to avoid feeling consumer guilt is not justice in business.

We need to attach an expectation of quality to a higher price, we are relying on charity to propel business forward. Real justice in trade is about matching real price to real quality. Food subsidies have confused us – low quality for low prices is associated with a concept of “value”. Our marketplace is a disaster area of misadventures in volume for less. The message to “conscious consumers” is to pay more for less and feel better about themselves. This moral compass will lead us to, perhaps, an improved marketplace but not a just marketplace. Buying organic products from Walmart is not the same as buying organics at a farmers market in your own community from a person who woke up at 4:00am to make a display of food that they are proud to stand behind. The human connection in that interaction is really powerful. It is a different kind of consumer experience.

This past February we brought some of our customers to Nicaragua to meet the farmers that we have worked with there for nearly two decades. We walked on farms and shared meals and listened to farmers speak about their livelihoods as farmers and members of Fair Trade cooperatives. One afternoon we picked coffee on Byron Corrales Martinez’ farm and he shared with us his philosophy on bio dynamic farming. He grows feed crops in seasonal rotation for the cows that produce the manure he uses to fertilize his coffee trees. By rotating the cattle feed crops he consciously adjusts the ratios of nutrients in his fertilizer, modifying the balance of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium being added to or leached from the soil. When Byron’s coffee cherries are ripe he picks during the cycle of the full moon when the gravitational pull on the earth is eased and the sugars are drawn into the fruit and the water down to the roots. He has honed his craft to an exacting level. He grows arguably the best coffee in Nicaragua and the pride he and his family take in their beautiful harvests is well deserved. That human connection that we all experienced on that afternoon on Byron’s farm changed how our customers think about coffee.

Human connection is core to introducing justice into business and this is how we approach it: We go to the corners of the coffee growing earth to find the world’s most exceptional coffees for our customers. We seek out these coffees through the avenue of Fair Trade because it is a system that consciously emphasizes broad community development and establishes democratic processes for cooperative management - empowering the communities where coffee grows. We visit the cooperative collection centers, farms, and farmers who take great care and pride in their craft. We bring the stories and pictures of those places and people to our customers - or we bring our customers to those people and places. And we ask the farmers to name their selling price, meet that and offer a higher price to coincide with quality improvements. Our goal is to partner with farmers and bring you something that is truly special and strengthens local economies. Until our customer sees farmers as craftspeople, the Fair Trade conversation will be about charity.

Our business is about bringing you beautiful coffees grown by farmers whose faces you’ve seen on our packages and whose stories you’ve read on our website and whose communities you’ve maybe even visited. Coffees that get you out of bed in the morning, coffees that you feel are worth every dollar. That’s what we think looks like just business.

What does it look like to you?