Which coffee, Rain Forest Alliance or Fairtrade?
Published on Oct 30, 2010
There has been a shift in recent years in many businesses starting to promote the Rainforest Alliance coffees over what used to be the more favoured option of the Fair Trade logo. So the consciences of the coffee loving public are facing a bit of a battle. In the UK, around 4% of the coffee drunk is FairTrade-marked and coffee giants Cafédrect, the which sells only Fairtrade drinks, has proved that the ethical model can be a success.
Their sales top over £22m annually and are now the sixth largest coffee brand in the UK. However, Italy’s biggest coffee maker, Kraft Foods and their competitors Lavazza and Lyons Original are all set to launch their own ethical coffee ranges, but interestingly, they have all decided to go with USA’s Rainforest Alliance instead of the UK’s Fair Trade Foundation.
Some cynics believe that this is driven by profit margins: the Rainforest Alliance is much cheaper compared to the alternative. They assume that its customers will be happy that the coffee they are buying is stamped with some sort of ethical, sustainable certificate.
The Rainforest Alliance does have high environmental standards, but they are not able to provide a price guarantee for farmers and therefore there is still room for exploitation. They are able to offer its workers minimum wage (currently at around $1.40 in some places) but other than this and the basic necessities, there are no other requirements that must be fulfilled.
Coffee manufacturers who choose the Rainforest Alliance can also save money by not having to pay a licence fee for the Fairtrade logo which is about a 2% fee. The cost of using Fairtrade has made it almost impossible for some small coffee producers to be able to offer an ethical option for their customers, a void which the Rain Forest Alliance has been able to fill.
The main difference with the Fairtrade Foundation is that it guarantees farmers a minimum price for their coffee beans. This is around 40cents higher that the market price. The Fairtrade Foundation also contributes an extra five cents as a social premium to invest in community projects.
However, Lavazza, one of the Rainforest Alliances’ partners has said they are committed to helping the farmers produce coffee more efficiently and therefore most cost-effectively, by investing over £320,000 in community schemes.
There are now over 25 million coffee producers in the world and so the whole industry establishing rules and regulations to make sure farmers get the best deals will never be sustainable, however, the Rain Forest Alliance has opened a new avenue for companies who couldn’t afforded Fairtrade to be able to become competitors in the ethical coffee market. And they are also investing heavily into the farmers themselves. And while the benefits for the farmers may not be as high as they are from the Fair Trade Foundation, they are still helping. And you know what they say, every little counts…
To find out more about each of these organisations, take a look at our information on the Rain Forrest Alliance and the history of Fairtrade and judge for yourselves.
Members of the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe