Specialty Coffee Retailer is a publication for owners, managers and employees of retail outlets that sell specialty coffee. Its scope includes best sales practices, supplies, business trends and anything else to assist the small coffee retailer.
Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/109835
BREW NEWS FAIRTRADE INT'L OPENS D.C. OFFICE Digs in for rivalry with FTUSA Fairtrade International USA has set up a new office in Washington, D.C., with a new board of directors and interim operations manager, to help further its presence as an alternative to Fair Trade USA. The organization named Enrique Hennings, an agricultural economist and former World Bank employee, as interim operations manager. Hennings, a native of Bolivia, most recently spent two years as the producer finance manager at Fairtrade International (FLO), the parent organization of Fairtrade International USA, where he helped develop a fund for loans for producer groups in Latin America. A five-member board was also appointed. The new office signals that Fairtrade International USA is fortifying itself for its rivalry with Fair Trade USA, which split from the parent organization in late 2011 over the question of certifying coffee from large farms. STARBUCKS OPENS IN VIETNAM Challenges culture of indie shops Starbucks is on schedule to open its first shop in Vietnam, a nation with a strong coffee tradition—and a strong presence of local, independent shops. The American coffee giant announced Jan. 3 that it would open its first Vietnamese shop in Ho Chi Minh City in early February. Vietnam has a coffee culture that goes back to its days as a French colony. Big cities are crowded with independent shops, and two other Western coffee chains— Gloria Jean's Coffees and Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf—already have outlets there. Local coffee retailers profess not to be worried about Starbucks, mostly because they believe Starbucks' prices will be out of reach of many Vietnamese consumers. "Our prices are affordable for average Vietnamese," Nghiem Ngoc Thuy, who has been running a coffeehouse in Hanoi for 20 years, told Fox News. "Expensive coffee is just for the children of government officials, or people who have lots of money." STARBUCKS HIT ON UK TAXES Prime Minister denounces 'dodging' In an apparent swipe at businesses including Starbucks, Prime Minister David Cameron declared that the United Kingdom has "had enough of businesses who think that they can carry on dodging their fair share" of the tax burden. Speaking in late January at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Cameron denounced "aggressive tax avoidance" and called upon the G8 group of top world economies to develop consistent tax rules and close loopholes. Cameron said that his people have "had enough of businesses who think that they can carry on dodging their fair share of the tax burden or that they can keep on selling to the UK and setting up ever-more complex tax arrangements abroad to squeeze their tax bill right down." Starbucks came in for political criticism, including some street demonstrations, after it came to light that Starbucks has paid only 8.6 million pounds ($13.8 million) in corporate taxes since its entry into the UK in 1998, and none in the last three years. The company offered to pay 20 million pounds ($31.6 million) voluntarily to the Exchequer, Britain's equivalent of the IRS, as a goodwill gesture. Starbucks lowers its British taxes through legal maneuvers often used by multinational corporations, such as charging its UK operations with debt that was actually incurred by operations in other countries with lower corporate tax rates. COFFEE VS. ORAL CANCER Study: Heavy drinkers reduce risk In yet another good piece of healthrelated news, a new study indicates that heavy coffee consumption may reduce the risk of oral cancer. The Cancer Prevention Study, a massive survey of close to a million Americans, found that subjects who drank four or more cups of coffee daily reduced their chance of contracting oral cancer by 49 percent, compared with those who drank little or no coffee. "So it went down a little bit with each cup," Janet Hildebrand, an epidemiologist and population expert with the American Cancer Society, told Voice of America. "And the lowest risk found was with four, five, six cups per day." The study was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology. TEA ESTATE OWNER MURDERED Labor dispute in India turns deadly In the deadliest of a series of confrontations between tea estate managers and workers in India, an owner and his wife were burned to death in their bungalow in Assam state. Hundreds of angry workers surrounded the bungalow in late December, following a dispute over management attempting to evict some workers from housing on the estate. The workers torched the bungalow, killing estate owner Mridul Kumar Bhattacharyya and his wife, Rita. Indian authorities arrested three men in connection with the attack. Assam, in northwest India, is the largest tea-producing region in the country. According to the BBC, more than half of India's tea production comes from about 800 estates in Assam. Bhattacharyya had been in a dispute over the housing issue with the workers prior to the killings. He had also been involved in another dispute two years ago, at 7