JulieCraves

Corporate coffee / Nestlé/Nespresso / Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Nestlé and Starbucks respond to illegal coffee report

In an article in an Indonesian newspaper, Nestlé and Starbucks both responded to the report that they had been purchasing robusta coffee beans illegally grown in a Sumatran national park in Lampung province.

Nestlé
A spokesman for Nestlé Indonesia made this statement:

“Nestlé never willingly purchases coffee from dubious sources. However, the company admits the difficulty of determining the precise origin of a coffee bag which has passed through different hands before it reaches the Nestlé buyer.”

The emphasis is mine, which precisely sums up why I continuously recommend not buying supermarket coffees.  If the companies themselves don’t know where their coffee comes from or how it is farmed, how can we know it is farmed sustainably?  Or believe them?

Nestlé also said that the coffee they purchase from Lampung (around 12,000 tons a year) goes to make instant coffee. So brands to avoid = Nescafé and Taster’s Choice.

 


Starbucks
A spokesperson for Starbucks’ Indonesian partner denied that the company purchased coffee from Lampung (the southern province in question), or any robusta beans from Sumatra at all.

Starbucks is listed in the report on page 50, in an appendix on recipients of tainted coffee.  The list was compiled from records of the Cooperative Industry and Trade Service of Lampung province. It’s possible these records could be forged or falsified, I suppose. There is nothing as yet on the Starbucks web site concerning this issue.

By the way, buyers of Lampung beans should know better.  It was in 2003 that published reports [1,2] revealed that 70% of Lampung’s beans came from inside or adjacent to Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park and that endangered animals were threatened from the illegal cultivation.

[1] O’Brien, T. G. and M. F. Kinnaird.  2003.  Caffeine and conservation.  Science 300:587.

[2] Kinnaird, M.F., E.W. Sanderson, T. G. O’Brien, H.T. Wibisono, and G. Woolmer. 2003. Deforestation trends in a tropical landscape and implications for endangered large mammals. Conservation Biology 17:245-257.

Hat tip to bccy.

Background information

Answers to BirdChatter questions

(updated June 2009) Recently, the topic of shade coffee came up on the popular Internet bird list, BirdChat.  I hope BirdChatters will have a look around Coffee & Conservation, beginning with some of the posts listed under "Overview" at left. But I thought I would take this opportunity to directly answer some specific questions which were asked on the list.

First up was the issue of "dueling" eco-labels.  Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has a trademarked certification called "Bird-Friendly."  It is the strongest assurance you can have that the coffee was grown under sustainable conditions: it must be certified organic, grown under a certain level of shade, and meet other strict ecological criteria.  This certification is mostly limited to Latin American coffee, but has recently been expanded into Africa.

Rainforest Alliance also certifies coffee and other products.  Their criteria are not as strict (for example, coffee does not have to be certified organic) and they include social criteria as well.  They allow use of their seal for products containing just 30% Rainforest Alliance certified beans. Large companies such as Kraft have used this to their advantage, for example on their Yuban brand, where the rest of the beans may be from totally awful sources. In fact, I am waiting response from Rainforest Alliance regarding some of the criticisms leveled at them. You can read more about certification at this post, and clicking on the category "Corporate coffee" will show you posts about specific problems with many of the big brands.

There is no law regulating the use of the term "shade grown." I wrote two posts (one, two) on who determines if a coffee is shade grown if it is not certified. The certification process is expensive, and many farms use completely organic methods (as they cannot afford chemicals) and grow coffee under shade in a traditional manner. With careful research, it's possible to determine if the coffee you drink is grown sustainably.  It's easiest if you buy coffee sourced from a single farm or coop, and it is useful to know how coffee is grown in certain regions, and the type of bean grown.  This is the kind of research I try to do for readers, and the list of sustainable coffee retailers in the left sidebar are good bets, and all coffees that are reviewed undergo similar scrutiny.

Regarding Trader Joe's and Whole Foods in general, Whole Foods subsidiary Allegro Coffee has many sustainable coffees in its line, and depending on the region Whole Foods carries other reliable brands: in much of the southeast, they carry Counter Culture's Sanctuary line, which I've reviewed. You can find other reviews of Allegro coffees in the coffee review section. Trader Joe's is very secretive about where they source their coffee and none of it is certified shade coffee. Read all about Trader Joe's coffee here.

Is Thanksgiving Coffee Company legit? Yes, although the fact that they imply that their Songbird Coffees are certified shade grown is misleading, which bothers me.  I wrote about Songbird Coffees here and here.  Who determines whether their coffees are shade grown?  The founder of the company.  Great guy and dedicated social activist, but not an ecologist. Nonetheless, from what I've determined, most of Thanksgiving's shade are grown quite sustainably.  My personal choice for a "conservation" coffee is Green Mountain Coffee Roaster's National Wildlife blend, reviewed here. 

I hope BirdChat readers find these answers helpful, and I welcome feedback in the comments.  What other questions do you have after looking over C&C?  What coffees, brands, companies, regions, or birds would you like to see researched and reviewed?  I want this blog to be as useful to you as possible, so feel free ask away.  Just remember, I have a day job!  I'll get to your burning issues as quickly as I can!

Coffee and the environment / Coffee regions / Corporate coffee / Jacobs Douwe Egberts/KraftHeinz

Illegal coffee growing threatens wildlife, Kraft major buyer

In a well-investigated and detailed report (pdf) released yesterday, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) revealed that robusta coffee is being illegally grown in southern Sumatra, with most being purchased by large coffee producers such as Kraft and Nestlé.

“Illegally grown coffee is mixed with legally grown coffee beans and sold to such companies as Kraft Foods and Nestlé among other major companies in the U.S. and abroad.” — WWF

The coffee is being grown inside Indonesia’s Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, which has over 300 bird species and is one of the few places where the endangered Sumatran subspecies of tigers, elephants, and rhinos coexist. This park has already lost 30% of its land to illegal agriculture, mainly coffee. WWF found 173 square miles being used for illegal coffee growing, with a yield of nearly 20,000 tons of coffee annually.  Wildlife has abandoned these cultivated areas.  WWF tracked the illegal coffee from the park through export routes to multinational coffee companies using satellite imaging, interviews with coffee farmers and traders, and trade route monitoring.

The U.S. received 17% of the coffee tainted with illegally grown beans.  Illegal beans are sold to local traders, who mix them with legally grown beans which then make their way to exporters. Major international companies purchase beans from exporters, and if they are not conscientious about their supply chain, they may not know they are buying illegal beans. The main buyers are shown in this graph from the report (click to enlarge), with Kraft being the number one buyer.

Exports of robusta beans from Lampung province, where most the park lies, have been steadily increasing, and the top six companies on the graph buy 55% of all Lampung beans. The profits spurring the encroachment into the park are financed by the purchases of these global roasters, and all Lampung beans have a very high probability of being contaminated with illegally grown beans, according to WWF. Talcoa (part of Kraft Foods), Kraft, and Nestlé were the top recipients in 2003-2005; Folgers (Procter & Gamble) and Starbucks received smaller amounts in 2004.

After being contacted by WWF, Kraft and Nestle were among five companies in the early stages of “engaging with WWF” on the problem. Four companies, including ED&F Man, parent company of VOLCAFE (which supplies beans to Nestlé and Maxwell House), denied involvement. Eight other companies did not reply (full list in report).

Remember this is robusta coffee, so you don’t have to worry about the Sumatran arabica beans from your favorite specialty roaster. The illegal beans are those used in most supermarket blends.  Another reason to not buy these coffees!

See update #1 here and a late 2007 update here.

Hat tip to Ned Potter’s ABC News Science and Technology blog.  Map adapted from GoVacation Indonesia.

Corporate coffee

Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club coffee

In my post summarizing Coffee Review’s look at supermarket coffees, I mentioned that Wal-Mart’s coffee deserved special attention. I was unable to find out exactly where Wal-Mart sources its ”Great Value 100% Arabica” but I can tell you where it sources its Sam’s Club’s Member’s Mark: Café Bom Dia, a huge Brazilian coffee roaster and importer. Because Wal-Mart prefers to (has to) work with large suppliers, and because the Great Value coffee contains beans from Brazil, I’m sure this is a major source for the Great Value as well as the Member’s Mark.

So, when you buy coffee from Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club (including the Café Bom Dia and Marques de Paiva brands), here is where your coffee comes from:

The photo is from the Café Bom Dia web site (since removed). The coffee is grown in the Mata Atlantic Forest region in the southern Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Only 7.3% of the original forest remains, having been cleared for agriculture, with coffee being the major crop. In the Mata Atlantic, 40% of the plant species are found nowhere else on earth, and there are 30 critically endangered vertebrate species, including 15 birds.

Café Bom Dia has 3 million coffee trees on over 741,000 acres. Although deforestation from coffee cultivation has occurred since the beginning of the 19th century, I do not want to buy coffee grown in this manner, nor do I want to encourage this type of production or expansion of these farms. Sustainably grown coffee mimics, at least to some degree, the natural forest system.  High production coffee is its antithesis, a factory system geared towards efficiency, uniformity, and low cost. Economies of scale dictate that when you buy coffee from large retailers and corporations, you are not supporting biodiversity and with your dollar are voting against the environment.

It is astonishing to me that Member’s Mark brand is Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified. I’m guessing that once again this means that the coffee includes only the minimum 30% certified beans, but I am writing RA for clarification.  Frankly, I don’t understand how RA can justify encouraging purchase of coffee from companies which obtain most of their coffee from giant monocultures. We’ll see what they say.

More information:

Update: Wal-Mart’s trustworthiness regarding organic food labeling is discussed in this new BusinessWeek article, which links to photographs taken by the Cornucopia Institute showing misleading labeling.

Further update (2008): Fact check on Walmart’s false claim about Sam’s Choice Rainforest Alliance certified coffee.