STiR coffee and tea magazine

38 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 2, 2019 (April / May) Ted Stachura of Equator Coffees & Teas, right, visits delos Andes Cooperativa, a non-profit cooperative in Colombia. Photo courtesy Equator Coffee Roasters A bag of Colombian bears are readied for shipment by Sustainable Harvest. "So a simple way of thinking about the difference between Fairtrade International is that Fair Trade USA extends the idea of "fair trade" to a new coffee supply chain actor that was pre- viously excluded from achieving "fair trade" certification – the private coffee estate," explains Robbie Lane, digital marketing manager at Sustainable Harvest. "The basic tenets of the fair trade model – price floor, rein- vesting the premium – apply to these private estates in the same way they apply to cooperatives. The main difference is how the premium is reinvested. At cooperatives, the money goes to ben- efit community/smallholder farmer members. Under the FTU- SA estate certification, that money benefits the seasonal farm workers," says Lane. "I haven't seen anything better come out that can have such an impact on the scale fair trade does," Cuevas said. Above the Equator Equator Coffee Roasters, based in Ontario, Canada, takes a different approach. Equator owners Amber and Craig Hall saw a pricing problem in 1998 when they founded the company. They started purchasing fair trade, organic certified coffees through brokers; but that didn't satisfy their goals of transparency and connection with the farmers so they joined a green- bean buying cooperative. After 20 years, the cooperative has eliminated middle men and established long-standing part- nerships with producer groups. As the coffee futures C-price hovers close to $1 per pound, Equa- tor's cooperative sets its base price at $2.20. "We'll never go below that," company vice president Shannon Hoops-Ripley said, "and we will pay more than that." "Small-scale farmers have not been able to cover their cost of production, not to mention pay- ing themselves or putting food on the table," she said. Equator buys about 270,000 pounds of beans each year for its 100 wholesale customers, three retail cafes and online sales. "We work with roughly 25 producer groups," Hoops-Ripley said. "Delegations from our coop visit farmers every year and we're trying to make incremental changes and make each purchase fairer than the [industry standard]." The cooperative buying concept is attracting attention. Roasters continue to join the group and acquire a share of the 100 containers purchased each year. "Each roaster has a similar philoso- phy" toward farmers, she said. "Our way is not the most profitable model but we believe stakeholders matter as much as [stock] shareholders," Hoops-Ripley said. "We're more interested in spreading out more of the profit. We're working hard to make this a level playing field." Another Equator's approach Across the North American continent in the San Francisco Bay Area, another Equator – Equator Coffees & Teas – has been building relationships with growers who strive to deliver the best qual- ity beans for a sustainable price. Equator Coffees & Teas, founded in 1995 in Marin County, roasts more than 1.3 million pounds of beans each year for wholesale, retail, and online sales. And, the company is willing to pay more to get more. "We always use importers to move the coffee but for many of our coffees we negotiate directly with the producers," said Ted Stachura, the company's director of coffee. "Once we identify a co- operative via an import partner, we negotiate an FOB price and the importer will attach their cost." Equator Coffees & Teas pushes for high-quality coffee and "paying higher prices gives us ac- cess to better quality lots whether the market is up or down," he said. Paying more means charging customers more, Stachura conceded, but the company's 500-plus wholesale customers understand and accept the company's position. "That's one of the reasons customers are coming to Equator in the first place," he said. "Most of our business is wholesale. We can't compete on price, but we find that wholesale customers come to us because of these relationships that we have with coffee producers. We try to be competitive with other high-end specialty roasters and we are able to cater to different levels of the specialty coffee market."

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