|
Fair Trade & Sustainable Coffees
|
|
|
|
The first and most important stage in creating our deliciously rich
coffees is with the selection process. Selecting and purchasing green
coffee( raw coffee) is the single biggest factor that determines what the
final product will taste like. Our goal of selling the finest coffees guides
every buying decision. We seek out the world’s most exciting and
flavorful coffees. Only coffees grown at high elevations, hand-picked,
and processed with great skill can even begin to meet our rigid
standards. The green coffee must be free of all defects, both physical
and in the cup. It must possess a “best of” taste profile. The coffees
produced at this level tend to come from the small, independent
farmers who are very environmentally friendly insofar as their growing
and processing practices.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Today’s coffee drinkers have become very sophisticated coffee drinkers, demanding nothing short of
great tasting coffee. Many of today’s coffee drinkers have also become much more environmental,
social and health conscious than ever before, especially with their consumable product purchases. This
has resulted in a growing interest in sustainably grown food products.
The term Sustainably Grown is used to describe any agriculture product that addresses the various
economic, social, and environmental concerns related to the production of that product. Regarding
sustainable coffee, The SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) has adopted the general
definition of “sustainable” published by the UN World Commission on Environment and Development in
1994, which stated: ......“development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The specific environmental and economic
questions that we (at Torreo) receive the most questions about have to do with Fair Trade and Shade
Grown/Bird Friendly issues.
|
|
|
|
The term Fair Trade is generally accepted to mean coffee
that has been traded and sold in a way that ensures that the
farmer receives a fair price for their efforts. A price that not
only covers their costs but also earns them a reasonable
profit on the coffee they grow.
These criteria often limit the participation by farmers to just a
handful from a particular country of origin, often times leaving
the coffees that taste the best uncertified. Transfair does not
take the quality of the product into consideration. Instead,
coffees are often certified based solely on economic need,
precluding estate coffees, grown on family farms that often
possess the highest quality, from certification.
It is our view that the best way to ensure farmers are paid a
fair price over the long-term, a practice Torreo is firmly
committed to, is to encourage and educate farmers to grow
truly special coffees. In industry after industry, the company,
in this case the farmer, that produces he highest quality
products can command the highest prices for those products.
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Even though the status of the majority of the farms in the
world precludes them from being certified, we believe
farmers that produce the best must be paid a premium
price for them to be able to continue producing their
premium coffees. Without this premium, they have little
incentive to maintain their high standards of quality. These
coffees fall into a category known as “Specialty” grade
coffees, and have always been priced well above the
commodity grade prices. At Torreo, because all of our
coffees are “Specialty” grade, we pay well above the market
average for every bag of coffee we purchase.
The coffees that are sold by mass manufactures are the
companies that tend to pay the least for their green coffee.
And these companies have the biggest impact on the world
coffee market. Their products often compete solely on
price, therefore their goal is to produce their products at the
cheapest price possible. This philosophy is in direct conflict
with the specialty roasters willingness to pay more for higher
quality green coffee. In fact, over 90% of the coffee sold in
the world fits into the category of commodity coffee, so the
biggest impact on farmers comes, not from the specialty
coffee segment, but, instead, from the mass producers.
Only if these mass producers are willing to pay a “fair price”
for their green coffee purchases, can the industry as a
whole produce the quality of specialty grade coffee.
Farmers producing the best coffees have not been
responsible for the destruction of shade canopies. Instead,
it is farmers producing low grades of coffee, grown on very
large farms, that have been cutting down these precious
shade canopies.
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
