CONSUMERISM Fair Trade proponents turn focus to supermarkets BY IAN DONNIS

Proponents of Fair Trade coffee — which offers poor growers in developing countries a sustainable wage — are accustomed to a curious Catch-22. On one hand, Fair Trade products are wildly successful, tripling in sales over the last three years, as a Time article indicated in 2004. Yet because the feel-good beans still constitute just a tiny portion of the multi-billion-dollar US coffee market, many consumers remain unaware of their own ability to make a variety of positive differences with a small daily purchase.

Fair Trade campaigners, such as the Boston-based nonprofit development group Oxfam America, have enjoyed some success in convincing large corporate roasters to expand their Fair Trade offerings. This fall, for example, Procter & Gamble, the maker of Folgers, the leading seller in the US, began selling Mountain Moonlight, a Fair Trade-certified coffee, on supermarket shelves. Seeking to stimulate greater Fair Trade sales, Oxfam has turned its attention from the big roasters to supermarkets themselves.

In November, activists began visiting supermarkets in Boston, Washington, DC, and elsewhere to encourage store managers to stock and promote Fair Trade coffee. As Oxfam spokeswoman Helen DaSilva notes, many supermarkets carry the Fair Trade beans, but they are often segregated in the organic food section or otherwise beyond the awareness of many consumers. "Our goal as part of this campaign was to try to have better product placement," DaSilva says. "These products should be in the coffee aisle with everything else. [Consumers] should know that the Fair Trade logo means something, and that their money is being used to support the people who actually make the coffee."

The global supply of coffee has severely outstripped demand in recent years. The result of this coffee crisis means that when most people buy a cup of joe or a bag of beans, they support a status quo in which poor growers in Latin America, Asia, and Africa receive as little as 20 or 25 cents for a pound of high-quality coffee (see "A jolt with a difference," News, August 20). Fair Trade coffee, by contrast, offers growers a minimum price of $1.26 per pound, helping them to sustain their livelihoods, improve their communities, and even help the environment.

In grading supermarkets’ Fair Trade efforts in October, based on such factors as availability, shelf placement, promotion, and the range of products offered, Oxfam gave an overall grade of B to Ahold USA, the owner of Stop & Shop, and a C to Whole Foods. The natural foods chain got the middling grade, Oxfam says, because, "according to its company policy, Whole Food does not FT certify its own coffee brand, Allegro Coffee."

In a news release, Seth Petchers, Oxfam’s coffee program coordinator, notes that Fair Trade coffee is now available in more than 20,000 retail outlets, including Starbucks and Bruegger’s Bagel Bakeries. "In other to catch up with this trend, mainstream supermarkets must go a step beyond carrying Fair Trade-certified products; they should promote them to their customers," he says. "We’re looking for supermarkets to take Fair Trade to the next level."

The supermarket-based campaign has abated with the cold weather, but DaSilva says the effort will continue in the spring.