Kraft v Starbucks. Does Fairtrade win ?

Today we read about Starbucks stepping up their efforts to stop Kraft selling Starbucks brand coffees through the world's biggest grocery store outlets, so they can go back to doing it themselves or hopefully with a more ethical partner.
Ironic that Kraft, which recently bought the big Cadbury fairtrade brand, now stands to lose the big Starbucks fairtrade brand. Clearly fairtrade plays absolutely no major part in the Kraft thinking, which is what any industry expert, or for that matter dog on the street, has always known.
Contrast that with a 'pure-as-the-driven-snow' motive behind Oromo Coffee Company where Ethiopian refugees in UK are bringing top quality Ethiopian organic fairrtade coffee from the home based communities direct to the public more so they can just have independence from the state benefit system, than to make a profit at all !

The average board director at Kraft, of course, has never actually set up a business, prefering to read about them in far away business school books, relying on money and contacts to fast track them to corporate riches, and the protection of legions of dispensable junior staff who bear what little responsibility Kraft recognises for real customer demands.
So, today, we take our hats off to the likes of Oromo, and the motivation that has got them going.

Global Warming & Fairtrade sorted

Spent hours hours today debating Fairtrade as a concept and discovering that the world's CO2 emission problem could REALLY be solved by Coca Cola in just over 3 years ! What a day. And I had a gorgeous duck salad for lunch.
We Forest is a great response to climate change, and well worth checking out.
As for Fairtrade, the concept does cast the 'recipient' communities, and therefore potentially entire small nations in a particular relationship to the 'sharing/giving' countries.
 Obviously the implication is that all other trade is 'unfair', and be that as it may, and I for one DO subscribe to that observation, it may indeed NOT be giving an entirely intended message to outsiders, that FT is about 'sharing among equals' rather than a means simply to feel good about handing out a donation to the needy. Divine chocolate and the likes are the real deal, but Cadbury and Nestle clearly are not. Sadly, not enough people have made that distinction. I hope they (YOU!) will from now on.
Todays recommended reading that partly inspired such thoughts is Stone Soup by one of Earth 2010's most thoughtful inhabitants, Bill Liao. Thanks Bill.

Israelis attack Fairtrade olive groves ?

We read today that the olive farming families in Palestine are now even having their olive trees chopped down in areas neighbouring the west bank jewish settlements.
Zaytoun are an organisation trying to provide free and fair markets for the olive oil that has been grown here for decades, that deserves our support.
And the best way to do that is simply to buy their product in the shops. And to realise more and more that what we spend our ever decreasing family budget on is basically a vote for the kind of world we want to live in.
I heard that at a conference recently, and it sticks with me, because its true.
Buying cheap tea bags is just a vote for a world full of cheap tea bags. We get what we buy into ! Big time !
So, lets vote for Fairtrade, for freedom to trade, and for what we need rather than what we want.www.zaytoun.org