Corporate coffee

Corporate coffee

Responsible Shopper ranks big coffee corporations

When I write about corporate coffee, I often refer or link to Co-op America’s Responsible Shopper corporate profiles.  They’ve now done summaries of many industries, comparing top companies in broad categories, including grading the largest coffee corporations. Companies get a letter grade, and are color-coded to boot.

The list includes the big four, plus Starbucks. Starbucks is a big player in the coffee industry, but frankly not in the same league as the other multinationals. It deserves
a fair amount of criticism in some areas, but I believe Starbucks doesn’t receive due credit for its role in heightening awareness of specialty coffee and weaning the public away from the multinationals.

As for the other four, letter grades for the Environment category are:

  • Kraft = “n/i.” This is undefined. No information? C’mon. I’ll provide a generous one, based relative to the grades Co-op America is providing: C.
  • Sara Lee = C-.
  • Procter & Gamble = n/i. My grade: D-
  • Nestle = F (it got this failing grade across the board for various corporate responsibility categories).

[Unfortunately, these profiles are no longer available.]

 

Corporate coffee / Nestlé/Nespresso

Nestlè distributes mass-produced robusta clones

A report recently announced that Nestlè’s research and development facility in France has developed clones of Robusta coffee plants specific to particular countries. They are distributing them to “countless coffee growers across the globe.” These producers are suppliers of green beans to Nestlè’s instant coffee division, Nescafe, and the plants are developed to increase yield and income.

Each plant is genetically identical, as they are produced in a lab by somatic embryogenesis, a form of tissue culture. Therefore, should a pest, disease, or pathogen infect a farm planted with a particular clone of coffee plant, it is likely to wipe out every genetically identical tree on the farm, as well as every genetically identical tree planted within reach of the infection.

Tissue culture is not uncommon in agriculture, or even in coffee production. But as this statement in an article on the American Phytopathological Society web site succinctly states,

“The modern emphasis on monoculture of  genetically identical crops,
commercial propagation, and worldwide distribution of improved
varieties increases the likelihood that a chance infection will lead to
the development of a disease epidemic and the attendant crop losses.”

One only needs to look at the Irish potato famine, Dutch elm disease, southern corn leaf blight, or the current banana crisis for examples of the dangers of genetic homogenization. The dichotomy in the coffee industry is quite amazing. On the one hand, this mass production of identical plants, geared toward high yield and profits in instant coffee. On the other, a push to save wild varieties of coffee, and the pursuit of beautiful microlots and unique tastes by true coffee lovers. I know which “hand” I’m in!

Coffee and the environment / Corporate coffee

Sara Lee’s "sustainable" coffee

Another one of the Big Four multinational roasters is jumping on the green bandwagon. Sara Lee’s foodservice division is introducing its “Good Origin” line in the U.S. This line of six coffees will UTZ Certified (formerly Utz Kapeh). Sara Lee stated:

“Sustainability is the goal of protecting, preserving and improving the social, economic and environmental states of coffee producing communities. … We’re partnering with UTZ CERTIFIED coffee, the most credible and comprehensive certification program that supports these sustainable goals.”

With this move, Sara Lee says it is showing its commitment to “sustainable quality” by doubling its purchase of sustainable certified coffee to 20,000 tons in 2008.

This represents just a tiny fraction of Sara Lee’s coffee purchases
According to the International Coffee Organization, world production for the years 2002-2006 averaged right around 7 million metric tons per year. Not all is exported from producing countries; the export figure is about 5.3 million metric tons. Although exact market share is considered a “trade secret” and hard to come by, Oxfam indicated that Sara Lee buys about 10% of the coffee on the world market. Even using the lower 5.3 million ton figure, the 20,000 tons of certified coffee Sara Lee plans on purchasing will be less than 4% of their total annual procurement.

The statement that UTZ is the most credible and comprehensive certification program is just false.
The most comprehensive and credible program for “protecting, preserving and improving” the environment is the Smithsonian Bird-Friendly certification, which requires organic certification and has other stringent criteria. I wrote an entire post describing how the UTZ environmental criteria are the weakest of all the major certifications.

The most credible and comprehensive certification program aimed at improving social and economic conditions is Fair Trade. The UTZ certification program has no price minimums or guarantees for producers; it has been criticized as “Fair Trade lite” precisely because big buyers are using it as a cheaper way to tap into the ethical consumer market.

On the bright side
This is not to say UTZ certification isn’t worthwhile. The program emphasizes recordkeeping and traceability. Although the Good Origin blends have indeterminate names like Terrenos Gemelos and Tres Joyas, consumers will be able to input a source code from the front of a coffee bag and go to the Good Origin web site to identify the origin of the coffee. Sort of. You’ll get sent to the one of the UTZ producers pages, which provide general information but not many specifics (especially on growing conditions) for the cooperative or farm.

Nonetheless, that consumers can get even this much information about coffee origins from one of the Big Four is notable. As we learned some time ago, these corporations don’t actually know themselves where all their coffee comes from! Because of the huge volumes of coffee they purchase, they have networks of buyers and middlemen; traceability is a nightmare.

Do I prefer that the Big Four buy at least some coffee from some sort of “sustainable” source? Yes. But I do not believe in supporting corporations that do far more harm than good. It’s like giving a free pass to a drug dealer because he built a health clinic in his hometown, while pushing dope in front of the local school. And why should I reward a company for making a marginal effort at doing what it should be doing, being an ethical, responsible corporate citizen?

As long as consumers demand and continue to buy cheap, mass produced coffee, the Big Four will continue to obtain it from whomever they can. They’ll do the least expensive thing they can — such as buying a tiny fraction of their coffee under a certification scheme that costs them the least amount of money and effort — in order not to lose the consumers that have tried to wake up and smell the evils of unsustainable coffee. Don’t be fooled.

Coffee and the environment / Corporate coffee

Habitat still destroyed for cheap corporate coffee

Nearly a year ago, I wrote a post discussing a World Wildlife Fund report revealing that robusta coffee was being illegally grown in southern Sumatra, with most being purchased by large coffee producers such as Kraft and Nestlè (press release here, full PDF here). That report focused on coffee being grown inside Indonesia’s Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Lampung province.

Earlier this week, ABC News carried a report on the plight of wild elephants in Sumatra. The story updated the situation at Bukit Barisan, and reported that only 4 elephants out of 60 still survive there. ABC said:

The national park is a protected forest, but a lot of it has been burned and cleared to grow Robusta coffee beans. These beans are commonly used in Europe and North America to make instant coffee.

Nestlè, which makes Nescafe, buys coffee from the region — 40 percent of it from local traders.

A Nestlè spokesman told ABC News, “It might come — we have no way of  knowing — from illegal sources. Law enforcement is not our task.”

In a follow-up post, I provided and update, in which Nestlè admitted the “difficulty of determining the precise origin” of its coffee. The company promised a year ago to increase the scrutiny of its Indonesian sources to make sure it didn’t buy illegally grown beans and launch an effort to clean up its supply chain.

If Nestlè hasn’t bothered to clean up its act, there’s a good reason: consumers are not penalizing them for their poor behavior. For the first nine months of 2007, since the first reports about the illegal coffee came to light, the Nestlè division that includes Nescafe and other coffees grew 10%, with sales — just in this division — of over US$11 billion.  It’s not just Nestlè, Kraft’s North American beverage division also posted a 5.3% gain in net revenues in the third quarter of 2007.

As long as people buy these coffees, they will continue to be produced, no matter how much habitat and wildlife gets destroyed, or how many growers become impoverished. The large multinational corporations that bring us our dirt cheap coffee are motivated by profits. Do you buy this coffee? What motivates you?

Photo of robusta coffee growing in the sun in southern Sumatra, from Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center.