The difference between Fair Trade and Direct Trade coffee
Coffee is at low prices in the supermarket.
Prices of €3.50 – €4.50 per 250-gram package are quite common.
Producing coffee at this price is almost impossible.
This leads to severely underpaid coffee farmers on the other side of the world.
More and more people are switching to consciously buying Fairtrade-certified coffee to support “fairer” coffee.
What is Fairtrade coffee?
Fairtrade focuses on creating ethical trading relationships between developed and developing countries.
When purchasing Fairtrade products, consumers can be confident that the trade has been verified by a third-party organization and that coffee farmers are guaranteed a higher minimum price than for non-certified coffee.
Both the farmer and the roaster must be members to sell their coffee with the “Fairtrade” label, which is not affordable for everyone.
Criticism of Fairtrade coffee is that it puts price over quality.
Moreover, the transparency of all the steps between the coffee farmer and the roaster is not guaranteed with Fairtrade coffee beans.
What is Direct Trade coffee?
In practice, there are often large lots between the coffee roaster and the coffee farmer.
This not only increases costs, but lowers the quality of the final product and reduces payments to farmers.
Direct Trade coffee involves direct communication between the roaster and the farmer.
Although there may be other middlemen in the chain, transparency is guaranteed and farmers can negotiate a fair price with the roaster.
In this way, both parties can build a lasting, long-term relationship and work together to improve the quality of coffee.
The result?
Much better quality coffee and a fair wage for the farmer.
