The Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality award is designed to recognize exceptional coffees carrying the Rainforest Alliance seal and to highlight the linkage between sustainable farm management practices and cup quality. There are now two annual cuppings and awards, divided by geography. In December, coffees from the southern hemisphere — including Brazil, Peru, Kenya, Tanzania…
Certifications
Corporate coffee: How much is eco-certified?
How much eco-certified coffee do the world’s major coffee roasters purchase?
Caribou Coffee: 100% Rainforest Alliance
All the coffee sourced by Caribou is 100% Rainforest Alliance certified. How this stacks up against other major coffee buyers, with a footnote on Caribou stock ownership.
First Rainforest Alliance climate-friendly coffee farm(s)
(Updated) Finca Platanillo in San Marcos, western Guatemala is the first coffee farm to be verified by Rainforest Alliance (RA) for compliance with the Climate Module of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN, the standards-setting organization for RA). Less than a week later, it was announced that the well-known Daterra Estate in Minas Gerias, Brazil became…
What’s wrong with cheap coffee, in a nutshell
The Fair Trade USA/FLO break-up and its ramifications is seeping into the mainstream media. Recently, for example, the New York Times published an article on the debate on the future of fair trade, and NPR carried a radio segment. A piece in Mother Jones magazine by Tom Philpott summed up the kerfluffle nicely, but what…
Fair Trade USA muddies the waters
A recent announcement by Fair Trade USA qualifies as major news that changes the meaning of “Fair Trade” certification in the U.S., and which may mean changes to environmental standards for coffee certified as FT by Fair Trade USA.
Canada now has own certified organic seal
Canada now has its own certified organic standards and seal.
What does “organic” really mean?
What does “certified organic” mean when it comes to coffee? What chemicals are allowed?
Bird-Friendly certifies coffees in Nicaragua
From my accounts of previous trips, readers know I have a soft spot for Nicaragua. So I’m happy to report that the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has now has three Bird-Friendly certified coffee producers in the country. Selva Negra — Selva Negra, near Jinotega, is 450 ha that consists of an ecolodge, organic gardens, ponds,…
Sips: Fair Trade debate
There are so many great voices in the fair/Fair trade movement, I keep out of it aside from environmental aspects of certification and occasional links. Here are a few of those links to some posts I have found most thought-provoking lately. Fair Trade is having growing pains, and recent high market prices for coffee have…
Share it or spare it?
Intensifying production while conserving biodiversity Food security and the ability of agricultural lands to feed over 9 billion people by 2050 is an increasingly-discussed topic. Part of this issue is how to conserve biodiversity while boosting agricultural capacity, either by increasing the productivity of land currently in production through some sort of intensification, or expanding…
Eco-certified coffee: How much is there?
Latest update March 2021 When sales and market shares of various certified coffees come out, I try to put them together in a post. Each certification scheme tends to announce them at different times of the year, and provides slightly different data. I’ve decided to put the most salient data together in a table for…
Rainforest Alliance to require upping the ante
Rainforest Alliance will require companies that use less than 100% certified beans in their coffees to increase that amount by a set percent each year until they reach 100%.
Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality – April 2011
As promised in the last post, here are the winners of the Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality awards from the April 2011 cuppings, which covers countries in Latin America, Ethiopia, and India. The award is designed to recognize exceptional coffees carrying the Rainforest Alliance seal and to highlight the linkage between sustainable farm management practices…
Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality – Dec 2010
The Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality award breakfast at the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) annual trade show is always the first function we attend each year at this event. The award is designed to recognize exceptional coffees carrying the Rainforest Alliance seal and to highlight the linkage between sustainable farm management practices and…