I kickstarted 2008 with what I believed was a noble resolution: to pay a fair price for everyday luxuries such as chocolate and coffee. These two products often have a high toll on the environment, as virgin forests are cleared away to make way for new coffee or cocoa plantations.
Yet putting this resolution into practice proved harder than I thought.
Buying organic food might be good for the environment, but the organic label is no guarantee that it’s good for the people who produce it. This is where the Fair Trade label comes in, which guarantees that the farmers producing the crop pay a fair wage to their labourers and promote economic self-sufficiency. Although Fair Trade products have taken off in a big way overseas, South Africa still appears to be more of a producer than a consumer of such items — despite a growing middle class with a taste for luxury and a business philosophy centred on the eradication of poverty. We should be writing the book on ethical trade.
If I’m willing to pay extra for a product, surely someone should be around to sell it to me? You would think that this is basic consumerism, but this tenet does not always hold true. I’m not convinced that higher prices for basic necessities is desirable, but for discretionary purchases I can afford to pay more.
Ethical coffee is available, but finding it requires perseverance. I started my search where I usually shop: my local Spar. While organic coffee was prominently displayed, no coffees said anything about Fair Trade. Woolworths — now the go-to shop for good living and organic everything — stocks organic coffee but again, no Fair Trade. I was later told that Pick n Pay apparently sells Clipper coffee, which is certified Fair Trade in the United Kingdom.
Perhaps health shops and organic delis would be a better bet, I reasoned. I had mixed success. Fruits & Roots, an established Jo’burg health shop, stocks organic but not Fair Trade coffee. When I phoned the shop assistant admitted he wouldn’t know where to find Fair Trade coffee in Jo’burg. But Greenlands, another health shop, said it had just signed on a supplier, Bean There.
According to Bill Farquharson of Greenlands, much of the shop’s coffee was what he termed “organic in practice” rather than certified organic, as it is produced by traditional farmers in Ethiopia without access to chemical fertiliser. And as the coffee is produced in Africa, certified in Europe, then sent back to Africa for consumers, the carbon footprint is “crazy”.
Sandy Barlow, one of the partners in the Seattle Coffee Company, said the company subscribes to ethical trading principles. “Not all our coffee is Fair Trade but it is all ethically bought. None of our coffee is bought at a cheap price,” she said, adding that Seattle was careful to pay a sustainable price for its coffee. Much of the coffee comes from small co-operatives and family farms, which by their nature do not qualify for Fair Trade inclusion. The Fair Trade label can also be costly for producers.
When I contacted Jonathan Robinson of Bean There he admitted that his coffee is not currently certified as Fair Trade. This is because there is no certifying body in South Africa for coffee, so no label can be issued. But Bean There does subscribe to Fair Trade principles and believes in “direct fair trade”. It is also certified by the German organisation UDZ for its environmental and social principles. The company pays producers more than the Fair Trade price and doesn’t sell coffee that was grown without the involvement of the farmers and community. At present Bean There sources coffee from Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania.
Bean There supplies coffee to high-end game lodges and boutique hotels, but its products are also sold in Thrupps and — soon — Greenlands. “We target the higher end as we’re buying only the top 2% available in the world,” Robinson said. “We have to pay for the fact that we pay more for our coffee.”
Drinking decaf?
If you need decaf coffee, like me, you can still buy responsibly, although you might have to look harder. Previously coffee was decaffeinated using a chemical process, which affected the taste and raised health concerns. But either a carbon dioxide process or a Swiss water method can be used, which does not affect the coffee’s organic status or the taste.
Several organic coffee blends are not yet available in decaf, although Woolworths said its will be available in stores soon. Bean There stocks a decaf single-origin Ethiopian coffee, where the caffeine is removed by a carbon dioxide process that removes none of the flavour.
Seattle says its coffee is also decaffeinated using natural processes.
The other luxury: chocolate
Ethically produced and traded chocolate is extremely difficult to come by for South African consumers. Much of the world’s cocoa is produced in Côte d’Ivoire, where, according to reports, slavery is widespread and poverty among farmers is endemic. Supermarket chocolate bars offer no guarantee that anyone has checked conditions on the cocoa plantations. Just offering a fairer price to farmers — one which more adequately reflects the cost of production — might start to improve conditions. (Or it might not, because, again, who’s checking?)
As far as I can tell, just one Fair Trade-certified chocolate is available in South Africa: Green & Black’s Maya Gold. Green & Black, previously an independent company, is owned by one of the biggest chocolate manufacturers around — Cadburys. And although the entire Green & Black range is certified organic, only the Maya Gold flavour is certified fairly traded.