Hi all,
It's Fairtrade Fortnight! Woohoo! :-)
Nothing much is happening in our little town, but to my surprise Starbucks are at least aware of this week's campaign. Their response? Today, from 2pm onwards, they are holding a Good Coffee Day. This means, one 'tall' cup of their fair trade filter coffee per customer, FREE! Wow. Only 4% of Starbucks coffee (in this country at least) is fairtrade, so I am interested in seeing what it is they are offering.
However, does it strike anyone else as being somewhat ironic that during fair TRADE week they are giving it away for nothing?

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I think it's more ironic that they are pushing their Fair Trade like it's 96% of their offerings, unlike the 4% it actually is. Shows for them it's a shell game.
I think it's supposed to be 6% in the UK now, but it's still pretty crappy, and the mark-up on it is ludicrous. I was reading a fantastic paper for university recently - called the Starbuckisation of Society. Unfortunately it's not yet published so I can't really post it up, but it is fascinating - how they have created an empire out of serving "coffee" to people who don't actually like coffee. It claims that you can get decent coffees in there, but only if you know what to ask for - and they are profitting from the fact that most people don't! Like with the fair trade stuff, it is there, but only for drip coffees, not for espresso. So the chances are their customers wanting Venti-skinny-syruppy-frappewhatevers will never touch the fair trade version.
starbucks is becoming 100% fair trade this month. I'll be proud to work for starbucks when they do that and not feel horrible at times. Great company but stupid rules.
Starbucks is too large of a company to purchase all Fair Trade certified coffee. Would there be any left for other shops if they supplied their 16,000ish stores with all Fair Trade certified coffee. They do pay at or above Fair Trade minimum prices for all of their coffees and have their own fairness based incentive program for their coffee growers. I worked there for a long time before I finally freed myself and started pulling real shots from a GB5 at an independent shop. They have become a fast-food coffee shop and it is very sad, but of all the major corporations out there, they are one of the least evil.

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