Fair trade coffee sales grow in the US

My late parents use to restrict the family to drink coffee. They have their valuable experience in Coffee in their life, my experience is I have some hang over the next day & also developed weak heart. Therefore, I advise people the same like what my late parent did.

Fair trade coffee sales grow in the US
22/11/2004 - The last two years have seen a significant increase in businesses using fair trade coffee, but Philippa Nuttall asks whether the US is really serious about ethical food ingredients.

The $100 million fair trade coffee market is the fastest-growing sector of the coffee industry, according to trade reports, and TransFair USA estimates that 30 million pounds of fair trade coffee will be imported into the US this year, nearly double the 18.7 million pounds that entered the country in 2003.

These figures though are tiny compared to the mainstream market – coffee sales in the US are worth over $19 billion - and product launch figures are hardly earth-shattering. In total sixty-nine new fair trade products, including a large number of fair trade coffees, were introduced over the past two years in the US and Canada. This is most definitely an increase on the last couple of years - just 15 products were launched in 2002 and only six in 2001, according to Productscan Online - but in terms of the market as a whole, these products are a mere drop in the ocean.

“Fair trade with its emphasis on a fair price for agricultural products is making waves on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean,” said Productscan, but in the US especially, ripples would be more appropriate. Tom Vierhile, executive editor of Productscan Online, agrees that fair trade is very much in an “embryonic phase” in the States.

The small size of the market seems to be at least partly due to poor marketing, meaning that only a minority of people in and outside the food industry actually know what fair trade means.

“You see fair trade labels in the natural food products area, but even most natural food. Read More....
Fair trade coffee sales grow in the US