STiR coffee and tea magazine

56 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 5, 2018 (October / November) 50 100 150 200 1990/91 1995/96 2000/01 2005/06 2010/11 2015/16 Production Consumption new Rainforest Alliance Certified, single-origin Colombian coffee was largely based on research that found that close to 50% of Millennials consider sustainability important when choosing their java. The opposite is also true: socially conscious consumers can now easily use the internet to find ethical brands and avoid poor-practices brands. The final step could be that the multi-billion dollar companies could price the retail product at the same level as their down-market, non-sustainable, low-wage competi- tors, lose some profits – or not, as they'll gain market share – and switch the whole trend away from elite purchasers to the general population, allowing the less affluent to also buy in solidarity with their counterparts toiling in weaker economies. To sum up, it would seem that there are four main paths to reversing the destruc- tion wreaked by unstainable pricing: 1) Retain stocks within producing countries – and make policy collectively on the multi-country OPEC model. As the Brazil-Colombia joint statement emphasized: "The holders of coffee stocks have a great influence on the setting of international prices. Therefore, it is fundamental to correct the current imbalance, shifting the stocks from consuming countries to producing countries." 2) Bring added value to producing regions via local (like Ascafé) and national as- sociations (FNC) or foreign entities such as the UN, USAID, JICA, (Japan Foreign Aid agency), SDC (Switzerland) and home country government aid. Finance the building of internal infrastructure such as sorting and roasting facilities and education that goes beyond agronomy toward connoisseurship, as espoused by Ramiro Fajardo Moncada, rural sectional coordinator in the Quinini Department, Colombia. "If we start the process of giving cof- fee added value, drying it sufficiently and converting it into parchment, doing a proper selection at harvest, [we can] real- ize excellent profits and things will surely start to change. Additionally, if we seek alternative markets for a portion of the farm's production, for example selling futures, to threshers [mechanical harvest- ers] or to a distributer of threshed and processed, ready-to-prepare coffee, with previous knowledge of in-cup quality, in- come will increase," said Moncada. "We coffee producers have to go be- yond knowing the physical qualities of our coffee and get to know the organo- leptic qualities (smell, flavor, aroma)… recognize the characteristics of each lot, and then we will be able to demand better a price for our product," he says. 3) Work to expand ethical – sustain- able sourcing among retailers as part of the effort to switch control of stocks away from commodities markets. By selling directly to retailers, (Starbucks, il- lycaffé, Lavazza) traders could largely be eliminated from the mix. 4) More visible, direct communica- tion to consumers, beyond packaging: TV and internet ads showing the corre- lation between low retail prices and bad practices, leading to fewer farmers grow- ing coffee, leading to drop in produc- tion – leading to higher prices. And the message: you might as well support good practices sooner than later. World Coffee Production and Consumption Source: International Coffee Organization ICO Thousand 60-kg bags "Price levels of [$.95] are an embarrassment. They are unjustifiable. I've not seen the cost of a cup of coffee or the price of a pound of coffee on a supermarket shelf, go down anywhere in the world." – Roberto Velez, director FNC.

• Cover