Free samples of Starbucks Cafe Estima

Today my home-delivered Sunday paper, in a large midwestern city, was in a sleeve containing a free 2.5 ounce sample (ground) of Starbucks Cafe Estima, their Fair Trade blend.  The sleeve explained that Starbucks shares the goals of TransFair USA through its CAFE (Coffee and Farmer Equity) program, and that this year Starbucks will buy nearly 25% of all the Fair Trade beans imported into the U.S. Judging from the stats presented by green LA girl in her post Starbucks fact sheet for Fair Trade activists, this is somewhere around 4% of its coffee.   Green LA girl has a three-part series on the Starbucks CAFE program (one, two, three).

Whenever I see a big promotion like the freebie packets of Estima, it makes me question if it was money well spent.  Our paper has a Sunday circulation of about 730,000.  I have no idea what percentage is home delivery; let's say half.  Even if the coffee, packaging, and special sleeve cost Starbucks only $1, that's $365,000 just for this market.  In how many other cities did this promotion run?  A few million bucks going directly to the coffee farmers, or for projects in their communities would be really worthwhile.  But instead, few people will be even educated on Fair Trade and its implications (who reads the sleeve of their newspaper?).  It could turn on some people to their coffee, I suppose.  Starbucks might win, I don't think it does squat for the farmers or advances the position of Fair Trade.

Overall, I'm pretty ambivalent about the sustainability efforts of Starbucks.  On the one hand, I think some effort is better than none, and the company does seem to be continuing a variety of environmentally and socially responsible projects.  Kudos!  On the other hand, they do not, in my opinion, offer high quality, fresh, truly sustainable coffees.  I still turn to the independent roasters, like those in the sidebar, for the real thing.

 

Comments

[green la girl]

Well -- I really don't see it as a money for the farmers trumps all sort of issue. Having Starbucks just give handouts to farmers isn't sustainable, in my view. It makes more sense to up demand for fair trade coffee, so that more farmers AND consumers benefit. I think that consumer ed is really, really important, especially considering that only about 20% of fair trade coffee's sold at fair trade prices, due to lack of demand.

Of course, the issues you bring up -- say, about the effectiveness of the ad promo for consumer education weighed against the cost -- is def. of concern, especially when Starbucks is trying to piggy-back its CAFE practices on top of fair trade certification. That's not truth in advertising.

My hope's that people will see the coffee, try it, and maybe google Starbucks fair trade. That brings up the OCA's campaign page against Starbucks, where people can get the skinny about how fair trade Starbucks really is.

[BirdBarista]

You are correct in that I was being a little unrealistic with the handouts to farmers idea. If this could really raise awareness of Fair Trade, that would be cool, but the sleeve was sort of long-winded, and ended up giving their "what makes good coffee" web site URL, which might short circuit any hope of folks getting a balanced view.

[bob]

Didn't Starbucks have to purchase the samples from somewhere? Like maybe the farmers? Maybe I'm wrong -- I'm just saying...

[cheryl]

[ have never heard of starbucks before. and i drink alot of coffee.how can i try it before i buy it . i hate to bye this and not like it