ottawa foodies

Our new supplier brought up this issue with us a few months ago, and pointed out that some farmers simply cannot afford the circa $4000 per year for certification. He deals with them all in the same fashion, though. A term that a lot of coffee people are using is "Farm Gate" which is sort of like uncertified fair trade. Here is something I wrote about it for our business

bytownbeanery.wordpress.com

I will send the article to our supplier and ask for his opinion on whether or not Fair Trade is having a negative effect in the Americas. He's quite the expert in American coffees, and makes regular visits to all of the farmers he deals with.

Take everything with a grain of salt. Lawrence Solomon has been against Fair trade certification for many years. Does it help the farmers - some greatly, others maybe not so much. It is true that forming a cooperative is the way the farmers can maximize their profits via the Fair trade system. I also agree that the certification process is flawed and can cause financial strain on the system. However the article focuses on how it hasn't worked for African farmers - the free trade movement started in the America's and has been successful here. Perhaps more needs to be done to figure out how to maximize returns for the coffee farmers in Africa. Like most issues you can usually find data to boost which ever point of view you choose to take.

Thanks for posting the link, KenV - it made interesting and somewhat disturbing reading (and thanks also to zymurgist, for his previous posting of a link to an article at greenbeanery.ca on the subject of some of the problems caused by fair-trade certification - if reading this in "Buzz" click on Fair Trade Coffee in the header for it and KenV's original post as well). I wasn't aware of issues surrounding fair trade certification and see I have a lot to read (many more links at the end of the greenbeanery article).
So many shades of grey, so few shades of black and white, and now my bubble has a pinprick leak in it. Is greenbeanery's approach the patch I need?

Read this today. Seems fair trade doesn't really help the farmer if this article is true.
www.nationalpost.com

An interesting article on Fair Trade and Organic Coffee : www.greenbeanery.ca

They serve Equator coffee that's brewed in Almonte ottawafoodies.com/vendor/1175 My husband claims its the best coffee he's ever tasted. I thought it was good too.

While cleaning up the bills from my wallet, I just found the bill from Rainbow. Oh yes, I almost forgot the Francesco coffee I bought from Rainbow. It was my first time to try out Francesco coffee (I bought their French Roast beans). The coffee smell spread very well in my kitchen. The price is $34.99 per kg.

I also bought some organic soy beans ($3.22/kg) there to make fresh soy milk.

They serve FTO (fair trade organic) coffee from Francesco's, which is roasted fresh here in Ottawa. They serve traditional coffee and a variety of different brews from their fancy espresso machine. Delicious!

I purchased a half pound of the light organic coffee, roasted on site just recently. Brought it home, ground it freshly and brewed some delightful pots of coffee you of it.

I reccomend their fair-trade coffee beans and fair-trade ground coffee.

I passed by this place today and grabbed a cup of coffee. I was told that they roast and grind fair-trade coffee on-site. The coffee smelt good! (Since I add milk and sugar to coffee, I won't be able to tell if a coffee is good. You can tell I am not a coffee addict.)

"Freakin' Good" is our house blend - fresh ground on Saturday mornings - nothing better! The beans are usually fresh at the Independent Grocer in Almonte, and if you go to the actual shop, you can get one of their blends on sale each week.

We purchased a bag of their "Freakin' Good Roast" beans as part of a fund raising activity for our kids' nursery school. And yes, it is "Freakin" good! :-)

Awesome. I wanted someone to clear that up for me, because I'm pretty sure that if they have any symbols advising customers that they are FTC, it's the small trans-fair one on the outside of the door, and that can be misleading (Starbucks could put that up because they have one FTC coffee on the menu as whole bean).

That makes me love them even more!

LadyWhoBrunches: Unless they've changed their supplier in the last 6 months, Planet Coffee gets their coffee from Equator: www.equator.ca

All of Equator's coffee is certified Organic and Fair Trade: www.equator.ca

Um, their coffee is amazing, but I don't see anywhere that it is fair trade certified. I know that they get all their meats, cheeses, etc for paninis at La Bottega...and I think this may be the same for their coffee (I can't remember from when I worked there--at Bottega, not PC). Either way, this tag may be inappropriate, as they are not fair-trade certified as far as I know.

One of our goals in starting this company was to make Fair Trade and Organic coffees more affordable, and we're working hard to that end. All of our beans will be either one or the other, but we will strive for both as much as possible. Check our beans page for information.