Our Fairtrade Story

Before you wrap your hands around a hot cup of delicious Starbucks® coffee, the coffee itself has passed through many caring hands. And to guarantee it arrives in the very best condition, we operate with a simple yet demanding principle - 'Everyone must take good care of the coffee.'

Whether it's the barista who serves you in our coffeehouse, the roaster who brings out the full potential of each coffee bean, the coffee tasters who determine whether the beans make the grade, or the farmers and workers in coffee growing communities who pick the coffee cherries, we aim to inspire everyone to care about the work they do. At the end of the day, it's all about producing quality coffees for you to enjoy.

That's why we care about Fairtrade so much. It's not just about feeling good about buying our coffee in an ethical way. It's about supporting a system where farmers and workers are rewarded for caring about their craft and their community - and inspired to learn and develop good practices that produce high quality coffee beans in socially and environmentally responsible ways.

In the UK and Ireland all Starbucks® Espresso is now 100% Fairtrade certified. That's every Latte, every Cappuccino, every day.

Each coffee bean has been grown, harvested, processed, protected, bought, shipped, inspected, tasted, roasted, and carefully packaged, but before you get to enjoy it in your favourite Starbucks beverage it passes through one more set of caring hands. They belong to a Starbucks partner (employee), eager to share their knowledge and passion for coffee.

Starbucks baristas learn how to care for our coffee and most importantly how to make your beverage exactly the way you like it. They discover how we buy our coffees, including our Fairtrade certified coffee, and how our collaboration with Fairtrade helps to make a positive impact on the lives of tens of thousands of coffee farmers and their families. They also learn how the Fairtrade system makes a real difference to the communities they live in, and how in return for their dedication, farmers can benefit from improved health care, education and social programmes.

We do this because it's the right thing to do, and our community of baristas is proud that they can play a part in helping improve the lives of coffee farmers around the globe.

Before you buy your daily cup of Starbucks coffee it's already been bought once before - as green, unroasted coffee beans.

Last year, Starbucks bought 385 million pounds (lbs) of green coffee beans. 77% of that - 295 million pounds (lbs) - was responsibly grown and ethically traded.

We purchase only the highest quality arabica coffee beans that we can find that meet our strict buying standards, and we encourage farmers to adopt responsible social and environmental practices. In return the farmers receive the premium prices that premium coffee commands - which translate into meaningful enhancements to their living and social conditions. Last year alone, by buying our coffee in this way, we positively impacted the lives of more than one million farmers and workers in coffee growing communities.

We have doubled our commitment to Fairtrade purchases from 20 million to 40 million pounds (lbs). In doing so, we will also double the premium we pay to Fairtrade farmers through our global purchases.

We don't just buy any beans at Starbucks. We want the best beans, and the best beans demand the best conditions - the right trees, optimum weather conditions, the right soil, the best agricultural and environmental practices and - of course - picked at its peak. Still the coffee has to be processed to bring out its full potential.

To do this consistently, coffee farmers need to learn our standards for defining what a great cup of coffee tastes like. Each coffee sample is evaluated for four key qualities: aroma, acidity, body and flavour. In fact, before working with Starbucks, many of the farmers - believe it or not - have never tasted the product that they grow. With the help of Starbucks Farmer Support Centres in Costa Rica and Rwanda they are learning how to care for the beans at each and every stage of the process to ensure their months of hard work result in great tasting coffee. Once their coffee beans pass our rigorous quality inspection the farmers negotiate higher prices and better contract terms with Starbucks, benefiting their families and wider communities.

Together with Fairtrade are working together to empower small-scale farmers organised in cooperatives to invest in their farms and communities, protect the environment and develop the business skills necessary to compete in the global marketplace.

Roasting coffee is a kind of culinary alchemy—part art, part science. The roasting process harmoniously changes the chemical compounds that make up a coffee bean, transforming it from a raw agricultural product into a roasted coffee bean that will one day form part of a beverage that can make a difference to someone's day.

The first batch of any coffee is roasted on site - during the tasting evaluation process - to test the quality. If it passes the test, it's packed, shipped and tasted again to ensure the beans have retained their quality during transportation. Once the beans are approved for our inventories they are roasted on a much larger scale - a careful balancing act of heat, time, temperature and moisture to bring out the full potential of each coffee. This is also a crucial time - in the eyes of the roaster - to ensure all the hard work of the farming families is also optimised.

Just as farmers are tasked with developing and maintaining the right conditions to grow quality coffee so that they can create a sustainable living for their families, we see it as our task to help develop and maintain the farming communities in which they live.

On one level that simply means paying the premium prices that premium quality commands. In turn, this offers the farmers and farming co-ops the ability to pay their workers a living wage (and in many cases benefits and bonuses), access to health care, paid vacations and on-site education for their children. On another level it means educating farmers on how to improve the quality of their coffee, as well as increasing the size of their harvest.

Working closely with Fairtrade, we also encourage investment in good agricultural and environmental practices to help prevent pollution, promote biodiversity and lessen the use of pesticides.

The net result is a productive community of farmers proud and passionate about the quality of their work and inspired to treat the coffee with respect and care.

Great coffees come from great farms and from content people who feel a sense of security in their future; they come from families who have kids in school, learning to read when maybe their parents cannot; they come from families that are settled and happy with their day-to-day lives.

On top of paying at least the minimum Fairtrade floor price for quality coffee, the Starbucks-Fairtrade collaboration also ensures that tens of thousands of small-scale coffee farmers, and their families, benefit from an additional Fairtrade social premium payment.

The farmers themselves decide democratically how they wish to invest this money - whether that be in schools, sanitation, health clinics, alternative income generation projects or even diversifying into other crops besides coffee. This means that farmers are able to share the benefits with their wider community, and take more control of their future.

Starbucks has purchased and sold Fairtrade certified coffee for ten years. As a leading coffee brand we purchase more Fairtrade certified coffee than anyone in the world, and the social premiums we pay on top of the Fairtrade floor prices will benefit farmers and their communities across the globe.

Investing money on social projects - though far from common - makes complete sense to us, since we can see and taste the difference it makes to the end product our customers enjoy in our coffeehouses. Working closely with the Fairtrade organization to build long-term relationships will help improve the quality of producer communities. The producers are at the heart of the decision making process, deciding democratically how to use their Fairtrade premiums. Typically they invest in education, healthcare, farm improvements or processing facilities to increase their incomes.

Starbucks also invest knowledge, skills and expertise into the regions. Starbucks Farmer Support Centres have been hugely successful in Latin America in helping farmers increase the quality and quantity of their crops. In June 2009 another centre was opened in Rwanda to help local farmers improve the quality of their beans, which may help them to earn a sustainable living.

By doing the right thing, Starbucks is the best choice not only for the farmer, but also the wider community.

All of this good work would not be possible without our customers. That's you. By choosing Starbucks® 100% Fairtrade Espresso - that's every Latte, every Cappuccino, every day - you are helping to share the good with coffee farmers and their families.

Starbucks Fairtrade Espresso is a way to make responsible, ethical decisions about the coffee you drink everyday.

Looking ahead, Starbucks and Fairtrade will continue to explore ways to help farmers overcome geographical and supply chain challenges and help farmers improve the quality of their coffee, their communities and the environment.