Corporate coffee

Coffee news and miscellany / Corporate coffee

Sips: Corporate coffee news

Kraft’s Maxwell House coffee concentrate earns Rainforest Alliance seal. First of all, this product is a “premium roast frozen liquid coffee concentrate blend.” Blech. Second, once again only 30% of the beans are Rainforest Alliance certified, 70% mystery beans. Third, Kraft gets to boost its “green” image when 96% of the coffee they buy comes from uncertified sources. I don’t like to poo-poo any sort of sustainability effort, but this may leave a bad taste in many a mouth.

JM Smuckers, which acquired the coffee division of Procter & Gamble (Folgers, Millstone, Dunkin Donuts grocery store offerings) has been posting strong earnings, thanks to the blind loyalty people have for cheap, unsustainable coffee. It makes up 35% of the company’s sales and 50% of its profits.

Later this month, I’ll have further information on corporate coffee’s “sustainability” efforts. It’s not pretty.

Certifications / Corporate coffee

Certified coffee: current market share, part 2

(Update: I now regularly update the post Corporate coffee: How much is eco-certified? as new information becomes available.)

I often point out that the amount of sustainably-grown coffee that various large corporate coffee roasters purchase is a very small proportion of their total coffee purchases. In a previous post, I looked at the current market share of certified sustainably-grown coffee broken down by certification. Here, we’ll look at which of the world’s major coffee buyers/roasters are purchasing this coffee.

The source of this data is the Tropical Commodity Coalition, a group of ten NGOs that puts out annual reports on various aspects of the coffee, tea, and cocoa industries.  The Coffee Barometer 2009 presents market developments in the certified coffee sector.

Among the interesting data included is a summary of the green (unroasted) coffee purchases by each of the world’s top ten coffee buyers for 2008. It highlights how much “certified” coffee each buyer purchased, including Rainforest Alliance, Utz Certified, organic, Fair Trade, 4c, and the private initiatives of Starbucks (CAFE Practices) and Nestlè (Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Coffee Program).

In this post, I’ll disregard coffee purchased under Fair Trade (which does not have strong environmental standards) and the 4C Code (see this post on Nestlè and deforestation for information on this bottom-rung system, which does not include environmental criteria any of us would consider as being meaningfully “eco-friendly”). I’ll leave in the Starbucks and Nespresso programs and comment on them below.

So, how much eco-friendly, sustainably-grown coffee is purchased by the big buyers?

Nestlè. Owns Nescafè, Nespresso, Taster’s Choice, Clasico. Purchased 780,000 tons of green coffee in 2008.

  • 13,000 tons under their Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Coffee Program, or 1.7% of total purchases –but read on. The standards used by Nestlè in this program are not publicly available. Nestlè is working with Rainforest Alliance for guidance, but currently source farms are not certified by Rainforest Alliance. From what I have been able to gather, this program probably has fewer meaningful requirements for environmental protection than Fair Trade or Utz Certified, so pegging them at 1.7% is being generous.

Kraft. Yuban, Maxwell House, General Foods International Coffee, Gevalia, Kenco, Maxim, Tassimo, Nabob, and Sanka. 740,000 tons.

  • 29,500 tons Rainforest Alliance, 4% of total.

Sara Lee. Senseo, Java Coast, various foodservice, Merrild, Kanis & Gunnink, Cafe Pilao, Cafitesse, Harris, Piazza d’Oro; Douwe Egberts is its coffee subsidiary, under which many of these brands appear. 450,000 tons.

  • 20,000 tons Utz Certified (4.4%). The Utz focus is more on traceability and the business end of the spectrum, not environmental standards.

Smuckers. Folgers and Millstone (acquired from Procter & Gamble), Kava, Dunkin Donuts grocery store coffee. 280,000 tons.

  • 1,500 tons Rainforest Alliance/Fair Trade/organic (0.5%). This is a combination of the three, rather than the total amount being triple-certified. There are few organic coffees in their line, one RA coffee (discontinued as of 2011), so the amount is heavily weighted toward Fair Trade. Because of the relatively weak environmental standards of Fair Trade, this means the percentage of eco-friendly coffee is even lower.

Starbucks. 175,000 tons.

  • 4,500 tons organic (2.6%).
  • 120,500 tons under their CAFE Practices (68.8%, for a combined total of 71.4%). I recently took a look at the environmental standards of Starbucks CAFE Practices, and found they  address many more relevant ecological issues than either Fair Trade or UTZ Certified, and they are certainly much stronger than the Nespresso program. What does this mean?

Starbucks buys nearly twice as much coffee grown under meaningful environmental standards than the four largest coffee buyers in the world combined.

Perhaps more than all nine other big buyers. And they have developed these standards, worked with farmers to meet them, and use third-party verification as part of their own corporate initiative. Say what you want about the Mermaid, they do good work on the ground.

Tchibo. 170,000 tons.

  • 5,500 tons Rainforest Alliance/Fair Trade/organic (3.2%). See note under Smuckers about this combined total.

Aldi. Purchases for their private label store brands Beaumont, Alcafe, and Grandessa Signature. 145,000 tons. Percentages not disclosed.

Melitta. Melitta, World Harvest Estate. 145,000tons. Percentages not disclosed.

Lavazza. 140,000 tons.

  • 1,400 tons Rainforest Alliance (1%).

Segafredo. Segrafredo is a brand division of Massimo Zanetti, Beverage Group, which also owns Chock Full o’Nuts, Chase and Sanborn, MJB, and Hills Bros. They grow all their own coffee on plantations in Brazil (said to be the largest plantation in the world) and Costa Rica. Presumably, the 120,000 tons quoted in the report apparently is their production, not actually purchased. None is certified.

So, not counting Aldi and Melitta, since they did not disclose how much (or if) they bought any certified coffee, the big buyers purchased 2,855,000 tons of coffee, of which less than 7% was grown under verifiable sustainable environmental standards.

As mentioned in the last post, I’ve often heard that the reason big roasters do not purchase more sustainable coffee is because there isn’t enough available. This report also gives data on the amount of certified coffee produced, versus the amount purchased. There were 124,000 tons of Rainforest Alliance certified coffee produced in 2008, a surplus of 62,000 tons that was not purchased as certified. The surplus of Utz Certified coffee was 230,500 tons. Had all this been bought, then the percentage of certified coffee purchased by these buyers would have risen to around 17%.

Corporate coffee / Nestlé/Nespresso

Nestlé’s “no more deforestation” claim

In response to a Greenpeace campaign, mega-giant food conglomerate Nestlé has reportedly pledged to rid its products of deforestation. A closer read of Nestlé’s own press releases reveals apparently narrower goals, and there is no mention of eliminating deforestation in its coffee supply chain. In fact, other recent Nestlé coffee initiatives point to increased deforestation.

Nestlé responds to public pressure

Originally, the Greenpeace campaign demanded Nestlé quit sourcing palm oil for its products from companies that engaged in (sometimes illegal) deforestation in Indonesia. Public pressure was so intense that Nestlé not only suspended purchasing palm oil from a supplier with a particularly egregious record, the chairman called for a moratorium on deforestation, a few months later announced a partnership with the non-profit The Forest Trust (TFT), and “committed to ensuring that its products do not have a deforestation footprint.”

Reports of corporate responsibility may be premature

That sounds great, but don’t expect substantive action anytime soon. Nestlé is initially only working toward identifying bad players in its palm oil supply chain. Their goal is to source all their palm oil from “sustainable” sources by 2015. Unhappily, palm oil certification schemes have been marred by fraud allegations; the criteria, even if followed, contain loopholes; and some organizations contend that palm oil monocultures are simply inherently unsustainable.

Nestlé talks a lot about adherence to their Supplier Code. This lightweight document contains a single paragraph on sustainability (“supporting” and “encouraging”, but not requiring, sustainable practices) and one paragraph on the environment (in its entirety: “The Supplier must operate with care for the environment and ensure compliance with all applicable laws and regulations in the country where products or services are manufactured or delivered.”).

By the way, Nestlé declared that the biofuel industry is really responsible for forest destruction. This is a favorite tactic of misbehavers: pointing out that there are worse offenders, as if we must focus attention on causative agents only in rank order. Liver cancer causes fewer deaths than lung cancer, but we look for cures for both simultaneously.

Nestlé’s coffee plans: 220 million trees

Coffee has not been mentioned in any of these discussions. Nestlé buys upwards of 907,000 tons of green coffee annually, fueling the largest market share of packaged coffee in the world. In August (after all the anti-deforestation hoopla), Nestlé announced it was investing US$487 million in its global coffee supply chain. This follows their big robusta expansion push in Mexico that I wrote about in May.

A centerpiece of the current plan is the global distribution of 220 million high-yield coffee plants over the next 10 years. The plants will be free, and the farmers will not be obligated to sell to Nestlé. In other words, the farmers are taking on all the risk of increasing their commitment to coffee, without any guarantees it will be purchased.

Where and how will all this coffee be grown? High-yield coffee varieties are invariably planted in full sun. The push by multinational corporations for farmers to replace their shade coffee systems with higher-yielding, chemical-dependent hybrids was how this whole sun versus shade coffee dilemma was born! Much of the Nestlé coffee will be robusta, used in instant coffee such as the company’s Nescafé brand. Robusta coffee is also grown in the sun. I don’t see how this will not contribute to deforestation.

Another part of the plan includes increasing the amount of coffee purchased directly from farmers to 180,000 tons over the next five years. Direct buying, rather than purchasing from middlemen, should, theoretically, cut down on instances of the company buying coffee from habitat-destroying and illegal sources. In early 2007, the World Wildlife Fund revealed that Nestlé was among the buyers of robusta coffee illegally grown in a Sumatran national park. Their excuse was that they had no way of knowing where their coffee came from when it went through several buyers.

Nestlé’s direct buying goal, if met, will only cover about 23% of its total purchases. In their publication “Faces of Coffee” (pdf), when their direct purchases were at 14%, Nestlé noted,

“…it is unrealistic to believe that [direct buying] could be applied to a significantly larger portion of a roaster’s purchases…”

Let’s conclude, then, that the majority of Nestlé’s coffee purchases will continue to come from possibly-dubious or at least difficult-to-trace sources.

A small portion of suppliers to meet very minimal standards

Nestlé also aims to bring all of the farms that directly supply the Nescafé factories (not all of their direct-sourced coffee) up to the 4C Association sustainability baseline code by 2015.

This is not a certification; the 4C Code of Conduct outlines baseline requirements for coffee production. Only the most atrocious practices (such as bonded and forced labor) are considered unacceptable. The Code itself is made up of 28 principals, each having three statements categorized like traffic lights (red, yellow, and green) indicating “desired performance.”

The 4C system is considered inclusive.  Thus, coffee may be marketed as 4C compliant even if there are “red” practices (“must be discontinued”) so long as there is an equal number of “green” (“desirable”) practices in the same category (equaling a “yellow” average), at least for some unspecified period of time. So, for instance, a producer can kill endangered species and use the “most hazardous” pesticides so long as soil and water conservation plans are in place.

The 4C code is the lowest rung of the ladder for coffee production. I know we all have to start somewhere, but frankly, I am appalled that any of Nestlé’s coffee suppliers don’t meet these most basic standards of human and environmental decency.

A final aspect of Nestlé’s coffee initiative is to purchase 90,000 tons of Nescafé coffee sourced according to the “Rainforest Alliance and Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) principles” by 2020. Remember the math that 90,000 tons of all of their coffee would be about 11% of total purchases. Since this goal only applies to beans for Nescafé, it is an even smaller percentage of the company’s total purchases.

Also, note that this coffee will not be Rainforest Alliance certified, it will only conform to SAN principles. These ten principals simply form the basic framework of the certification criteria. So, for example, the Ecosystem Conservation principal states “Farmers should promote ecosystem conservation and recovery.” Without specific standards and criteria, evaluation of compliance with this or any principal is wide open for interpretation, and therefore lacks real meaning for consumers.

Keep Pushing

Considering the evidence, lauding Nestlé’s conversion to genuinely sustainable practices looks premature.

Certainly, it is a positive move that Nestlé is working with The Forest Trust (TFT), which focuses on products and their responsible supply chains. But it’s not a certification. According to this interview, TFT performs gap analyses on supply chains, identifies where they do not meet sourcing guidelines, and helps create action plans. This sounds like a potentially drawn-out process that allows Nestlé to kick true sustainability down the road.

As for coffee, TFT does not have experience or expertise working with coffee supply chains. Therefore, it’s important that Nestlé is working with Rainforest Alliance. RA’s own press release reiterates that Nescafé will not be using the Rainforest Alliance seal. I think RA is being overly optimistic in saying that this initiative will result in Nestlé “increas[ing] its supply of coffee beans without clearing rainforest.”

That sentence does, however, speak to the true goal: increasing supply. Robusta prices hit amazing highs in 2008 (probably when this plan was hatched) and prices are again climbing. Arabica futures are now at a 13-year high.  Any time coffee prices are high, coffee farmers tend to plant more coffee. In 3 to 5 years when the plants begin to produce, the glut of coffee causes prices to plummet. Nestlé is only adding to this problem by handing out tens of thousands of high-yield coffee plants. Nestlé is looking not for a sustainable coffee supply, but a sustained coffee supply.

The public must keep up the pressure on Nestlé and other similar companies to make meaningful, verifiable, prompt changes in their coffee supply chain to ensure authentic ecological and economic sustainability for all players. Until then, we shouldn’t be drinking a single one of the 4600 cups of Nescafé that the company claims are consumed every second worldwide. I’ve just learned this is International Nestlé-Free Week, so it’s a good time to start.

 

Corporate coffee / Nestlé/Nespresso

Nestlè strikes again

The Mexican government and the multinational food conglomerate Nestlè have partnered to increase the production of robusta coffee in nine of Mexico’s states. The majority of  coffee grown in Mexico is arabica. Robusta is grown by about 19,000 families on 34,000 hectares of land in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Puebla, and Veracruz. Current estimates are that Mexico produces 150,000 to 240,000 60-kg bags of robusta annually, roughly 5% of total coffee production in the country.

The plan is to increase robusta production to 500,000 bags by 2012, with 2000 hectares being planted with new robusta trees this year*. Nestlè is supplying the high-yield stock, and ultimately the output will go to supply their Nescafè soluble coffee plant in Toluca, outside of Mexico City. Nestlè plans to increase the capacity of this plant by 40%, which will make it the largest instant coffee production facility in the world. Currently, 450,000 bags of coffee are imported into Mexico to fuel the instant coffee beast.

Many of Mexico’s coffee farmers are not happy about this plan, concurring with a 2006 FAO recommendation that robusta production in the country not be increased due to concerns about oversupply and farmer income. Let me add my environmental concerns to the mix.

Unlike arabica coffee, which can (and is, in much of Mexico) grown as an agroforestry crop under mixed shade, robusta is grown in the sun and will require the clearing of valuable lowland forests, no doubt substantial amounts of fertilizer and pesticides, and cause collateral environmental damage.

Deforestation is already a problem in Mexico; between 1990 and 2005, the country lost nearly 7.5% of its forests and woodlands. The problem is especially severe in the state of Veracruz with a loss of 22% of forested lands between 1993-2000.

Ironically, this will also impact arabica production in the highlands. At least one study [1] has shown that deforestation of tropical lowland areas reduces the moisture of the air flowing up adjacent mountains. This decreases montane humidity and increases the elevation of the cloud deck, altering the highland forested areas where arabica coffee is grown (not to mention impacting all the other biodiversity associated with these habitat changes). Simulations indicate that “…inland cloud forests like those of southern Mexico may be profoundly influenced by regional deforestation.”

Perhaps Mexico needs to rethink this strategy. The biggest beneficiary will be Nestlè’s profits. Although some farmers may see short-term gains, in the long run deforestation contributes to climate change, food insecurity, and loss of biodiversity. That’s a big price to pay for more cheap unsustainable instant coffee.

*It will require 9400 to 79,000 ha to produce a half million bags, with the low figure representing the production of some of Nestle’s highest yielding varieties, based on yields in the Philipines.

[1] Lawton, R. O., U. S. Nair, R. A. Pielke, Sr., and R. M. Welch. 2001. Climatic impact of tropical lowland deforestation on nearby montane cloud forests. Science 294:584-587.

Instant coffee photo by mat300 under a Creative Commons License.

Coffee regions / Corporate coffee

Coffee growing in China

When you hear “China” and “coffee” mentioned in the same sentence, it is usually regarding the booming coffee market in the traditionally tea-drinking country. Less well-known is the fact that coffee is actually grown in China. It is predominantly low-quality arabica used in instant coffee, grown in full sun using high chemical inputs, and the Chinese government is aggressively promoting the expansion of thousands of hectares of coffee production.

Background
While some robusta coffee is grown in China, in Fujian province and on Hainan Island, this post will focus on arabica coffee grown in Yunnan province.

Coffee has been grown in Yunnan since the late 1800s, but on a relatively small scale. There was a resurgence in the late 1960s, but today’s Chinese coffee revival was orchestrated in the 1980s by the Chinese government, the United Nations, and at least one large multinational roaster. Very high import tariffs combined with millions of potential new coffee consuming customers has prompted roasters to source coffee from within the country.

How coffee is grown in China
Coffee is grown in Yunnan in several regions: Dehong, BaoShan, Simao, and Ruili, mostly in western Yunnan along the border with Myanmar. Elevation ranges from 900 to 1600 meters, generally around 1100 to 1200 m. Coffee farms range from small producers and large state-run or privately-owned plantations of over 2000 ha.

All the photographs I have seen of coffee growing in China has been sun coffee. Here is a photo of the 1200 ha ManLao River Plantation in the Simao region.

Organic coffee production in China is virtually unknown. China seriously over-uses fertilizers, with coffee being one recipient. A recent paper looking at different fertilization regimes for coffee in Yunnan province [1] concluded that “higher than routinely applied levels of fertilization are required to optimize coffee plants photosynthetic acclimation and growth” — and photosynthetic acclimation, the paper explains, means the ability to withstand full sun.

High fertilizer inputs are not the only problem. While I was able to find no data relating  specifically to coffee, China is the world’s largest user and producer (and exporter) of pesticides, used once again to increase yield, at a huge cost to the environment and human health.

Expansion, deforestation, and biodiversity
Whereas China only produced about 3600 tons of coffee in 1997, in 2009 this figure breached 28,000 tons on 2000 ha. In China’s usual grand form, the plan is to increase the coffee production area to 16,000 ha in the next 15 years. China is already suffering from severe deforestation, and it is a serious problem in Yunnan province. A paper discussing conservation there noted, “The most immediate source of wealth in Yunnan is the rapid liquidation of existing natural resources, particularly forests” [2].

The Yunnan Hogood (or Hogu) Coffee Company, for instance, planted nearly 4500 ha as of 2007, and this company alone plans to have over 13,000 ha in production by 2012. They are to begin exporting coffee to the U.S. this year. They have contracted with 30,000 farmers, and while a government web site (now defunct) stated that Yunnan Hogood is making these farmers rich, their per capita annual income is $454. This may very well be an improvement over previous incomes (Yunnan is one of China’s poorest areas), but it is still under the poverty level for China. Nestlé also touts that their investment in technical assistance to farmers and their purchases provide steady income to local farmers. This is probably true, but if farmers were being helped to produce high-quality specialty coffee, their incomes would be much greater.

All this land conversion is taking place in one of the most biodiverse regions in China. Yunnan comprises only 4% of China’s total area, but has more than 18,000 plant species and 1836 vertebrates (over 800 are birds); 112 of China’s bird species only occur in Yunnan [3]. The Yunnan mountains are designated as an important endemic bird area by BirdLife International, where they state that “loss of forest land here appears to be by far the worst in China.” One of the restricted range birds found here is the near-threatened Yunnan Nuthatch, shown on the stamp, another is the endemic White-spectacled Laughingthrush. More fabulous birds of Yunnan can be seen on the great photoblog of John and Jemi Holmes.

Specialty coffee

China’s arabica coffee is nearly all the catimor variety, which has some resistance to coffee rust due to the robusta genes in its background; it is generally considered low-quality and not specialty grade. Some older varieties do exist but are often plagued by rust and not being promoted.

A few specialty coffee roasters have a presence in China, despite the challenge of finding high-quality coffee and faced with consumers who overwhelmingly drink instant coffee (see below). Starbucks has over 700 stores in the country, and sources its coffee from producers in Baoshan*. The South of the Clouds blend includes Chinese-grown coffee and has been offered in cafes in China. That debut came with a remark from a Starbucks spokesman that the company would “ultimately” like to export Chinese coffee worldwide. However, supply currently isn’t high (or good?) enough to even put together a Chinese single origin offering (the South of the Clouds blend contains beans from other countries), and export is dependent on developing a source of “superpremium” arabica beans.

Other North American roasters with cafes in China include Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf and Canada’s Blenz Coffee. Roasters from other countries are there as well, all working to steer a tea-drinking culture towards fresh ground coffee.

The role of instant coffee and Nestlé

Nestlé is the big player in China, sourcing all of its Chinese-marketed Arabica coffee from within the country since 1997 and controlling nearly half the entire market share in the country. The coffee Nestlé produces and sells in China is instant coffee, which is typically the most palatable to consumers in tea-drinking nations and dominates Chinese consumption. Add in Kraft’s instant coffee, and these two companies represent 70% of the Chinese coffee market.

Nestlé has invested over $5 million in technical assistance to farmers in Yunnan province. They have sourced all their arabica beans from inside China since 1997 (probably blending with robusta), and in 2006 introduced 100% Yunnan coffee in their in-country NESCAFÉ instant coffee. Given Starbucks’ inability to source a single origin Chinese coffee, this could mean Nestlé has tied up a lot of producers, leases or owns their own plantations, or the beans they source are only suitable for instant. Many of the Chinese NESCAFÉ products aren’t just coffee, but pre-packaged coffee, sugar, and creamer, which are very popular in China. You don’t need good quality coffee for these beverages!  For more on the lack of sustainability and quality in instant coffee, see my previous post.

Coffee crisis, round 2?
One need only look next door to Vietnam to see what a no-holds-barred coffee production policy can do to world coffee prices and farmer livelihoods worldwide and the environment. Unfortunately, nearly all the same elements that precipitated the catastrophic coffee crisis of the late 1990s are once again in place: world development agencies and a national government encouraging and subsidizing the planting of huge amounts of coffee which could lead to a glut in supply, large multinational roasters eager to have a source of cheap mediocre coffee, and poor rural minority farmers hoping to get rich. As we have learned, a drop in world coffee prices due to oversupply from Asia means people and habitats suffer all over the world.

Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself.

*In late 2025, Starbucks divested itself of the majority of its stake in China. See these two stories by Reuters.

[1] Cai, C.-T., Z.-Q. Cai, T.-Q. Yao, and X. Qi. 2007. Vegetative growth and photosynthesis in coffee plants under different watering and fertilization managements in Yunnan, SW China. Photosynthetica 45:455-461.

[2] Lan, D. and R. Dunbar. 2000. Bird and mammal conservation in Gaoligongshan Region and Jingdong County, Yunnan, China: patterns of species richness and nature reserves. Oryx 34:275-286.

[3] Yang, Y., K. Tian, J. Hao, S. Pei, and Y. Yank. 2004. Biodiversity and biodiversity conservation in Yunnan, China. Biodiversity and Conservation 13:813-826.

Coffee news and miscellany / Coffee-related products / Corporate coffee

Sustainable instant coffee

I’ve been asked more than once about a source of sustainably-grown instant coffee. My usual reply is that there isn’t one. Understanding how instant coffee is manufactured will illustrate why the majority of the coffee beans that are used to make it are low-quality commodity coffee, and thus not a good option for consumers looking for coffee grown in an environmentally-friendly manner.

How instant coffee is made
Green coffee is brought to large manufacturing plants, often in the country of origin. Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico are the largest producers of instant coffee. At the factory, the coffee is roasted in large batches and ground. It then goes through multiple extractions using hot water under pressure. The resulting liquid is filtered and concentrated. Finally, the concentrated extract is dehydrated by either spray drying or freeze drying. Spray drying, in which the extract is spewed into an enormous tower and blasted by hot air, produces a fine powder. This powder must be “agglomerated” (other materials added to create familiar-looking granules that flow and dissolve more freely). Freeze drying creates clumps that resemble ground coffee, but the process is more expensive.

These production processes rob the coffee of most of the aroma. This is reintroduced by various combinations of natural or synthetic compounds, typically mixed with some type of oil, which are put back on the coffee particles prior to packaging in a process known as “replating.”

Why low-quality beans are used
The final goal of a specialty coffee roaster is great taste in the cup. To that end, they want carefully grown beans, processed properly at the mill, expertly roasted to bring out the best nuances of that particular bean.

The final goal of instant coffee is convenience. All the technology is aimed at leaching out all the water-soluble compounds to produce a product that looks and feels like coffee, but is quick and convenient to prepare.

This is the primary reason that low-quality beans are used for instant coffee: higher-quality beans with good flavor profiles would be used for the roast-and-ground market. Another way low-quality beans end up in instant coffee is because most countries don’t allow their lowest quality beans to be exported. Since instant coffee is often produced in the country of origin, it can be the final resting place of non-exportable beans.

Finally, instant coffees from the big corporate roasters such Nescafè’s Taster’s Choice (Nestlè), Maxwell House (Kraft), and Folgers (Smuckers) all contain robusta beans. Robusta is the lower-growing species of coffee (Coffea canephora) that is grown in large full-sun plantations. In some markets, some of these brands are 100% robusta (spray-dried instants are more likely to be all-robusta). In addition to the negative environmental impact of robusta plantations, these beans are considered inferior quality. To make robusta palatable, it generally must be steamed or treated in some way.

The big roasters not only use robusta, they will use very low-quality robusta. This article from Nestlè (a downloaded copy, since removed from their site)– incredibly boasting about quality — notes that they buy “coffee beans having eight percent to 16 percent triage.” Triage coffee, for the unsuspecting, is all the moldy beans, broken beans, sticks, stones, insect-damaged or rotten beans…all the stuff that is rejected or sorted out at the mill! [1].

The world’s largest producer of robusta is Vietnam, where it has been noted, “Wherever coffee was grown, forests have disappeared.” Brazil also grows a lot of robusta, but the variety grown there, called Conillon, is higher-priced than African- or Asian-sourced robusta. Côte d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is another major exporter. Côte d’Ivoire is the most biodiverse nation in west Africa, but has suffered severe deforestation and fragmentation, in part due to mass plantings of coffee and cacao in the late 1980s. Because of the time lag between environmental destruction and biodiversity loss (known as “extinction debt”), it has been projected that Côte d’Ivoire may still lose a third of its primate species.

In addition to being cheap, an additional motivation for manufacturers to use robusta is that it has a higher extraction rate than arabica. The rule of thumb is that it takes 2.6 kg of green beans to produce 1 kg of instant coffee. Manufacturers get a higher proportion of soluble materials out of robusta.

The authors of The Coffee Book: Anatomy of an Industry from Crop to the Last Drop put instant coffee in historical context:

“If in retrospect the coffee industry appeared to be out of its collective mind in pursuing the race for low quality, it is worth remembering that this blind love affair with consistency and technology was part of a larger cultural embrace of a mass-market modernism … Instant coffee was created by the same technophila that later produced technified cultivation systems.”

My mantra is generally that when it comes to the environment or farmers’ livelihoods, there is no such thing as “cheap” coffee. In the case of instant coffee, the cost of convenience and low consumer prices nearly always includes habitat loss and crappy proceeds to farmers.

One exception may be the new Starbucks VIA Ready Brew.  The majority of Starbucks beans are sourced under their C.A.F.E. Practices supplier guidelines (with a 100% goal by 2015), which use 24 criteria based on over 200 social and environmental indicators. I’ve received no confirmation so far that the beans used in VIA are part of this program.

[1] For a couple of discussions on how the use of this extremely poor quality coffee drags down the entire coffee industry, see this statement to Congress by the former SCAA director (scroll down halfway) and the post and comments on this blog post by Sweet Maria’s Tom Owen.

Photo from iStockphoto.

Corporate coffee / Nestlé/Nespresso

Greenwash alert: Nespresso and sustainability

Several months ago, Nespresso, a division of the giant Swiss multinational food corporation Nestlé, announced a major sustainability initiative they are calling Ecolaboration. Nespresso manufactures espresso machines that use proprietary single-use aluminum coffee capsules.

Ecolaboration has three main goals they aim to achieve by 2013:

  1. To reduce its carbon footprint by 20% per cup, primarily by developing “greener” espresso machines.
  2. To increase its capacity to recycle its aluminum capsules to 75% (this does not mean 75% will be recycled, see note 1 below and this post) and to “co-convene an industry roundtable on improving the sustainability performance of the aluminum.”
  3. Source 80% of its coffee from Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified farms (previously, RA was only helping assess farms in their compliance with Nespresso-specific standards, not certifying them; see note 2).

I’m only going to address the coffee sourcing aspect, as sustainably-grown coffee is the focus of this blog.

First, I read Nespresso’s fact sheet on “protecting coffee ecosystems.” A third of the document explains the importance of shade and biodiversity, while the rest neglects to specify any criteria or concrete measures proposed by the company protect the environment.

Thus, the Rainforest Alliance certification criteria will have to act as surrogate for Nespresso’s sustainability efforts. That’s fine, but exactly how much coffee does that “80% certified” represent? Specifically, and importantly, how much as a percent of coffee purchased by parent Nestlé, a company famous for its dismal corporate responsibility ratings [3]?

(Updated August 2010 to reflect actual published figures) In 2008, Nestlé purchased 780,000 tons of green coffee, similar to previous years and typical of their annual volume [4]. In 2010, Nespresso purchased 490,000 bags (60 kg each) or 29,400 tons under their “AAA Sustainable Quality Program” which includes, but is not exclusively, Rainforest Alliance certified farms [5]. This represents 60% of Nespresso’s purchases, but just under 3.8% of Nestlé’s total purchases. Their stated goal is now to source 80% of Nespresso coffee from the AAA program by 2013 (again, not exclusively Rainforest Alliance certified), which would be 5% of Nestlé’s total purchases.

The commitment to sustainably-grown, eco-friendly coffee by Nespresso is an extremely small percentage of Nestlé’s total purchases. This situation qualifies for what I consider to be the most offensive of the four greenwashing criteria set forth by Greenpeace: Dirty Business. This criteria states “Touting an environmental program or product, while the corporation’s product or core business is inherently polluting or unsustainable.”

I don’t even have to dig any farther into the elaborate hoopla on the Ecolaboration site (which frankly sounds like a rip-off of General Electric’s Ecomagination program). I cannot support such a meager effort, in particular from a company with such a long track record of disregard for labor and human rights, environmental protection, honesty in labeling and marketing, and other unethical business practices.

Notes:

[1] Nespresso offers recycling of the aluminum (home and office type only) capsules in several European countries. Even when Nespresso has expanded recycling efforts, it fails to create any meaningful increase in recycling rates. Due to technical constraints, the capsules themselves are not made from 100% recycled aluminum. This post explains that the whole pod recycling issue is greenwashing.

[2] Nespresso first partnered with Rainforest Alliance (RA) in 2003, and signed a five-year pact in 2006. In the first phase of this partnership (known as the Nespresso AAA Sustainable Quality Coffee Program), RA developed guidelines specifically for Nespresso to improve quality and sustainablity practices on farms supplying Nespresso. These farms were not being certified by RA under their usual criteria. RA appraised the farms to see if they were “implementing better methods and are decreasing their impact on the natural world.” Nespresso must have been happy with the partnership, as they routinely donate tens of thousands of dollars to RA (see annual reports). Under the Ecolaboration project, the goal is for 80% of the coffee to actually come from certified farms meeting RA’s standards. Update 2015: here is a post on the environmental and social requirements for producers in the AAA program. Note the low bar for entrance into the program.

[3] Corporate Watch lists numerous corporate crimes; another laundry list is at Global Investment Watch; Responsible Shopper outlines some boycotts and alerts; Source Watch lists more problems; and Ethical Corporation provides an article skeptical of Nestlé’s CSR report. Add it all up, and you get an award for least responsible company in 2005 (nomination here).

[4] Coffee Barometer 2009, linked to and summarized here; Ethical Sourcing – Creating Shared Value, 2008, Nestlé (PDF).

[5] Nestlé’s Nespresso Ecolaboration Progress Report, June 2011 (PDF).

Photo by svet under a Creative Commons license.

Corporate coffee / Dunkin Donuts

No proof of shade coffee at Dunkin Donuts

Recently, Dunkin Donuts Tweeted that the majority of their coffee is shade grown. I’ve been unable to verify this. Dunkin Donuts does not claim to serve or sell shade or sustainably-grown coffee anywhere on their web site. Nor is there any mention of organic coffee.

The only sort of ethical sourcing claimed by Dunkin Donuts is that all espresso-based drinks at Dunkin Donuts stores are made from Fair Trade certified beans. These beverages make up less than 10% (around 5% in 2006) of total global sales. While there is a notion that Fair Trade coffee is often also shade grown, Fair Trade standards have no shade criteria, and their environmental criteria are generic and unquantifiable (see my entire post on this topic). Although much of Fair Trade coffee is also certified organic, that which is purchased by Dunkin Donuts is not (when I searched for the word “organic” on the Dunkin Donuts web site, I got no results at all).

It’s not certified shade or eco-friendly
A spokesperson at the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center, which certifies Bird-Friendly coffee, told me that Dunkin Donuts approached them a number of years ago but opted not to offer Bird-Friendly certified coffee. Smithsonian reiterated that Dunkin Donuts does not have a contract with them. Rainforest Alliance, excellent at promoting their corporate partners, has no mention of Dunkin Donuts on their web site. The Dunkin packaging does not display the Rainforest Alliance seal that would indicate it contains RA-certified coffee.

Because there is no legal definition of the term “shade grown” coffee, many importers, roasters, and retailers market uncertified coffee as shade-grown to appeal to the eco-conscious consumer, although the consumer has no way of knowing if the claim is true.

Who supplies/roasts Dunkin Donuts coffee?
Brewed coffee in stores and foodservice outlets: Sara Lee. Since 1975, Dunkin Donuts has worked with Sara Lee to supply their franchisees with coffee. According to Sara Lee’s 2005 annual report, they still roasted “much of” Dunkin Donuts coffee. In 2007, Sara Lee partnered with Dunkin Donuts, in a multi-year deal, to be the exclusive provider of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to foodservice outlets across the country.

Retail coffee: Procter & Gamble/JM Smucker. In 2007, Dunkin Donuts entered into an agreement with Procter & Gamble to roast and distribute Dunkin Donuts coffee in retail outlets. The following year, P&G split off its coffee business, which was taken over by the JM Smucker Company. This included the Dunkin Donuts deal, as well as the Folgers and Millstone coffee brands. To the best of my knowledge, Smucker’s continues to use P&G’s supply chain.

In a comparison of the coffee industry’s largest companies, these roasters received failing grades from Responsible Shopper; you can view their corporate profiles for yourself (Sara Lee, P&G). In 2003, Oxfam America evaluated coffee’s “big four” regarding their efforts to assist struggling coffee farmers; Sara Lee “performed abysmally” while P&G scored 49 out of 100 points. Sara Lee also scored lowest among all food product companies, 13 out of 100, on ClimateCounts.org’s Climate Scorecard.

Where Dunkin Donuts coffee comes from
Dunkin Donuts does not publicly divulge where they source their coffee. The general consensus in the industry, plus information I’ve gleaned, is that their (non-espresso, at least) coffee is mainly sourced from Brazil, Guatemala, and probably Colombia.

Brazil is the world’s largest producers of low-grade arabica coffee, much destined for supermarket blends. Because of its climate, topography, and soil, most of Brazil’s coffee is grown in sun monocultures, mechanically harvested, with high inputs of chemicals, making it difficult to certify as organic or Bird-Friendly (there are no Bird-Friendly certified farms in the country). Although there is a movement towards some producers supplying specialty coffee, the main push in Brazil’s coffee agribusiness is towards increasing technification, due to the lack of land in which to expand to increase production [1].

[Update: Thanks to reader Lesa Gardner for pointing out a 2012 item on Dunkin’s own blog about an employee visit to a Brazilian coffee farm they source from: a vast, full sun plantation, with photo.]

In Colombia, technification of coffee was encouraged beginning in the 1970s by the national coffee growers federation. As of the mid-1990s, about 68% of Colombia’s coffee growing areas were technified (sun) coffee, representing 86% of total production.

Sourcing from Guatemala is perhaps the “best” justification for claiming shade-grown status, as most of Guatemala’s coffee is shade grown. However, a 2001 news article indicated that Dunkin Donuts sourced from the El Pajal/Santa Rosa area. That’s in Alta Verapaz department and considered part of the CobÁ¡n region, which has the lowest altitude, highest rainfall, and highest humidity of any of Guatemala’s eight coffee areas. Coffee grown in wet, cloudy areas like this are rarely grown in the shade. Indeed, a number of biodiversity studies comparing sun coffee and shade coffee used this region because of the presence of large sun coffee plantations and heavily managed shade monocultures [2].

Dunkin Donuts environmental standards
The environment page of the corporate responsibility section of their web site is brief. It notes that in 2008 Dunkin Brands “began to assess the impact of our business on the environment.” They have created an energy efficiency pamphlet for franchisees. There are 8,800 Dunkin Donuts stores in the world; last year they opened one LEED-certified store. It serves coffee in paper cups, whereas most of the company’s 2.7 million cups of coffee served per day are made of polystyrene (“Styrofoam”), which sit in landfills for over 500 years. These cups represent 4% of the total number of polystyrene cups discarded in the U.S. each year.

I’ve tweeted Dunkin Donuts regarding that original statement on Twitter, and I’ve also directly e-mailed the company. So far, I’ve not received a reply. I’ll continue to try to clarify the claim that they use shade coffee. But all the evidence I’ve uncovered so far indicates that they do not use organic or shade-grown coffee, and that Dunkin Donuts has so far not been the kind of environmentally-friendly company I would ever choose to support.

When it comes to supporting the environment, Americans should run from Dunkin.

A final unsavory note: In 2006, Dunkin Donuts was purchased by a consortium of private equity companies: Bain Capital, The Carlyle Group (heavily politically connected and formerly all mixed up in the defense industry), and Thomas H. Lee Partners. Since that time, the company has been suing their franchisees at a brisk pace. An attorney who represents franchise owners said, ”Dunkin has decided that there’s a smarter, more efficient way to increase revenues and that is to find and target franchisees that are vulnerable.” A big chunk of the debt used to finance the purchase of Dunkin Donuts comes due in 2011, and the company is thought to be behind on financial targets needed to extend the debt repayment. If they are feeling a pinch, paying more for sustainably-grown or certified coffee is probably not on their agenda.

[1] Brazilian Agricultural Research Corp. (EMBRAPA) report, 2006 (PDF); Manoel Correa do Lago, Brazilian exporter and economist, pers. comm.

[2] Greenberg, R. and J. Salgado-Ortiz. 1994. Interspecific aggression by Yellow Warblers in a sun coffee plantation. Condor 98:640-642 and Greenberg, R., P. Bichier, A. Cruz-Angon, and R. Reitsma. 1996. Bird populations in shade and sun coffee plantations in central Guatemala. Conservation Biology 11: 448-459.

Dunkin cup photo by the Consumerist, under a Creative Commons License.

Corporate coffee / McDonald's

McDonald’s coffee in the U.S.

Background
When McDonald’s introduced its Premium Roast coffee in 2006, it was selling 500 million cups of coffee a day in the U.S. alone, or one out of every ten cups sold outside the home. On the heels of that success and that of the growing high-end coffee market, McDonald’s in May 2009 launched its McCafe line of espresso drinks nationwide. These drinks are based on beans from Latin America and Indonesia, and are currently available in over 11,000 U.S. locations.*

Across products, the company has a diverse and complicated supply chain, as you might imagine. They favor multiple suppliers which often vary geographically. This is true with their coffee: McDonald’s does not roast its own coffee, so it obtains its beans from other roasters.

Fast food coffee: how does McDonald’s coffee compare?
Personally, I rarely drink coffee outside my home. Quality and taste issues aside, if I don’t know where it comes from, I don’t want to drink it. But when I think about other ubiquitous fast food outlets and their brewed coffee, I think about Folger’s being served at Wendy’s, about Dunkin Donuts being owned by three creepy private equity firms (providing little or no information on where their coffee comes from), and another of the “big four” corporate roasters, Sara Lee‘s Douwe Egberts division, supplying Burger King’s coffee. These are horrible choices, driven by profit. Quality and environmental sustainability not top priorities. Or if they are, none of those companies are making any effort to disclose to the public where they source their green beans and what environmental protection (or producer compensation) measures they undertake.

McDonald’s coffee suppliers
In comparison, the identity of McDonald’s major coffee suppliers are known, albeit with a little digging. Information on the the sourcing policies of those suppliers varies (discussed below). I’m most impressed with Green Mountain and Distant Lands. Those of S&D and Gaviña are more opaque.

The roasters below supply beans to the McDonald’s McCafe drink line. The first two also did/do supply beans for drip coffee. That is generally done on a regional basis, so I presume that the espresso line is supplied regionally as well.

S&D Coffee
This Concord, NC-based company is one of the leading roasters to the food service industry, supplying tens of thousands of commercial customers with coffee and allied products. S&D has supplied McDonald’s with coffee for over 30 years, and in 2008 was named McDonald’s supplier of the year. It was founded in 1927 and is still privately held by the Davis family. It is much more difficult to find out how privately-held companies source their coffees. A look at their line up reveals that they have several dozen wholesale coffee selections, including a few that are certified by Rainforest Alliance (at the 30% level. e.g., the products contain only 30% certified beans). While some coffees are single origin, little to no detail is provided, at least on the web site.

Gaviña Gourmet Coffee
Gaviña is based in southern California. Founded in 1967 by Cuban immigrants, it is still privately held by the Gaviña family, and currently roasts 32 million pounds of coffee annually. Gaviña has supplied McDonald’s since 1983, first with drip coffee and now with beans used in the espresso-based drinks. McDonald’s represents 15% of Gaviña’s sales. Other big commercial customers include 7-Eleven and CostCo. Gaviña sources coffee from about 40 different countries. Gaviña doesn’t divulge the three or four Latin American nations used in McDonald’s McCafe drinks; they say that’s proprietary information (but see below). Guess that means we can’t narrow it down to the cooperative or farm level! Gaviña’s web site indicates they have a limited selection of organic coffees, and a search for other certified coffees comes up blank.

Distant Lands Coffee
Distant Lands Coffee is one of the newer McDonald’s suppliers. The original roasting plant is in Texas, and recently they added another near Seattle. Among other places, Distant Lands supplies coffee to Safeway supermarkets and Panera Bread. In my post about Panera’s coffee, I went into some detail about Distant Lands and had good things to say about their commitment to quality and sustainability, which you can read about there. The fact that Distant Lands also owns or manages the farms they source from (such as chairman Bill McAlpin’s well-known La Minita in Costa Rica) was appealing to McDonald’s.

According to a Chicago Tribune article, at least one McDonald’s rep traveled to Distant Lands’ managed farms in Costa Rica, Brazil and Guatemala (as well as Indonesia), thus revealing the origins of at least three of the Latin American countries McCafe drink beans come from.

One other McDonald’s coffee supplier is worth noting. Vermont’s Green Mountain Coffee Roaster has been supplying Newman’s Own organic and Fair Trade certified coffee to around 650 locations in New England since 2005. Unlike the other suppliers, GMCR is publicly-traded. They have a great corporate responsibility record, source a lot of sustainably-grown coffee , and have many initiatives in coffee-growing communities. GMCR only supplies coffee to McDonald’s for drip, but it’s probably one of the most responsibly-sourced cups you’ll get at any fast food establishment, if you are fortunate enough to live in the region supplied by GMCR.

McDonald’s and Rainforest Alliance outside the U.S.
In smaller (and some would say more eco-conscious) markets, McDonald’s has gone a step further. All McDonald’s coffee in Australia is Rainforest Alliance certified. The web site specifically says, “Every bean we grind at McDonald’s Australia is made using 100% Arabica coffee beans sourced only from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms in Brazil, Colombia and Costa Rica that meet strict environment and social standards.”

In the UK, where as of early 2007 McDonald’s was selling 143,000 cups of coffee daily, the company also uses Rainforest Alliance certified coffee exclusively. There, they source through Kraft under their Kenco brand. According to McDonald’s, they are expanding certified coffees throughout Europe, where all their coffee will either be Rainforest Alliance or Utz-certified.

As a reminder, neither of these certifications is specifically geared towards shade or biodiversity. More on Rainforest Alliance shade standards here and Utz environmental standards here.

Where does this leave us?
Getting coffee at a fast food chain is not the usual or best path to uplifting farmers, preserving the environment, or even appreciating great coffee. That being said, if I had to do it, my conclusion is that I’d feel least guilty getting a cup of coffee at McDonald’s than at other big fast food chains.

Perhaps, we can make it better. One thing on the McDonald’s corporate responsibility web page caught my eye:

“Other McDonald’s markets such as McDonald’s USA are working with suppliers to learn more about sustainable sourcing options for coffee. They will continue to monitor customer preferences and develop their coffee sourcing accordingly.”

McDonald’s has responded to consumer pressure in the past (albeit prolonged and crushing). Let them know that you want to see all of their U.S. coffee come from sustainable sources. Here’s how you can contact them:

Phone: 1-800-244-6227
Snail mail: McDonald’s Corporation, 2111 McDonald’s Dr., Oak Brook, IL 60523.

—–

*About half of McDonald’s 30,000+ locations are located outside of the U.S., and while I’ll discuss their sustainability efforts in other parts of the world — notably the U.K. and Australia — this post focuses on the coffee in their U.S. stores.

First two coffee cup photos by Majiscup, last by Avlxyz under Creative Commons License.

Background information / Corporate coffee

When birders drink Folgers, part 2

(Part 1 here)

Last Saturday was International Migratory Bird Day. This annual event coincides with the peak of spring migration and is intended to increase awareness of birds and their conservation throughout the Western Hemisphere. Lots of organizations, parks, and refuges have birding events. I was reading about one of these celebrations (I later heard 15,000 people showed up) and the author made this comment on a picture of a throng of birders lined up on the trail: “There is tens of thousands of dollars of camera hardware in this photo, and the total value of optics and camera equipment on the trail would be utterly staggering if it could be tallied.”

I immediately wondered how many of these affluent people spent a few extra bucks to make sure that the coffee they drank supported the birds they were photographing, watching, and enjoying so much.

Probably not that many; I’ve written before about how resistant birders can be to changing their coffee-buying habits. The top reasons I’ve heard over and over are that shade-grown/sustainably-grown coffee is too expensive, or too inconvenient (certified shade coffee, in large part due to lack of demand, can be hard to find). The latter is really related to the former. I can’t imagine anything more easy than ordering coffee online to be delivered to my door, and there is plenty of sustainable coffee available this way. But this adds shipping to the cost, so it again comes down to price.

For the most part, this is a flimsy excuse coming from most active birders. Here are some facts:

  • A 1991 profile [1] of American Birding Association members showed that 46% of members responding to the survey had incomes over $50,000.
  • The same study showed that ABA members spent $3,374 annually on birding, with 74% of that total going toward travel to see birds, and 17% on equipment.
  • Around the same time, a survey of active birders [2] in the general public showed 16% had incomes greater than $50,000 (at a time when the average U.S. income was $20,000).
  • That study provided an annual expenditure per birder of $1,852, of which 71% was travel related.
  • A more recent survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [3] found that 27% of people who lived in households earning greater than $75,000 identified themselves as bird watchers.

I’ve already pointed out that great, sustainably-grown coffee doesn’t actually cost that much on a per cup basis. How about on an annual basis, to put the expense in line with the figures above?

While your mileage may vary, a pound of coffee generally yields about 40 to 45 eight-ounce cups of coffee. If you drink two cups a day, you go through 18 to 20 pounds of coffee a year. If you buy cheap, unsustainable supermarket coffee you probably pay between $5 and $7 a pound. I’m asking you to buy tasty, sustainably-grown coffee from a smaller specialty roaster, at around $10 to $13 a pound, or somewhere around $100 to $150 more a year.

Another report [4] described birders as “… the major, perhaps only, user-group of neotropical migratory birds.” Many of the active birders I know wouldn’t blink an eye at gassing up the car and taking off to see a rare bird hundreds of miles away, and many I know do this several times a year. But they are unwilling to spend the money to make sure those birds are around in years to come. Maybe the goal is to make all birds rare. If so, by drinking cheap coffee, they are doing a good job.

[1] Wauer, R. 1991. Profile of an ABA birder. Birding 23:146-154.

[2] Wiedner, D. S. and P. Kerlinger. 1990. Economics of birding: a national survey of active birders. American Birds 44:209-213.

[3] Birding in the United States: A Demographic and Economic Analysis. Addendum to the 2001 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting, and Wildlife-Associated Recreation (Report 2001-1). 2003. 24 p. (PDF)

[4] Kerlinger, Paul  1993.  Birding economics and birder demographics studies as conservation tools.   In: Finch, Deborah M.; Stangel, Peter W. (eds.). Status and management of neotropical migratory birds: September 21-25, 1992, Estes Park, Colorado. Gen. Tech. Rep. RM-229. Fort Collins, Colo.: Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service: 32-38.(PDF)

Background information / Corporate coffee

When birders* drink Folger’s

An editorial recently appeared in the scientific journal Conservation Biology. It was titled “When swordfish conservation biologists eat swordfish.” As the title implies, it’s a riff on the hypocrisy of avowed conservationists when their own lifestyles are inconsistent with the messages they voice. It struck a big chord with me, so I am going to borrow on its theme and major points.

One of my biggest frustrations is the resistance among many birders to change their coffee buying habits. Most birders I’ve talked to are aware that shade grown coffee preserves habitat and is very important to birds, and that mass produced coffee and grocery store brands are bad for the environment. But the next thing I often hear is some excuse why they still drink unsustainable coffee: they can’t find shade coffee, it’s too expensive, they don’t understand or trust certifications, they don’t like the shade/organic coffee they’ve tried, or…no excuse at all. Just a shrug and an admission of guilt.

Not only is it time for us — birders — to acknowledge that our consumption is often in conflict with our professed beliefs and passions, it’s time to do something about it.

In an ideal world, corporate conscience or government regulations would see to it that our environment is protected and that habitats are not destroyed needlessly. But in reality corporations and elected officials both respond to the values and actions of public consensus.

For coffee, certifications (such as Fair Trade, organic, or Bird-Friendly) help fill a regulatory vacuum. But since they are voluntary and not legally required, they are market-driven. Market forces will favor the standards that are easiest to meet. Participation by producers and distributors is reliant upon them gaining higher prices, better market access, or positive social benefits. Lack of consumer demand for the certified coffees undermines all of these motivations.

Chestnut-sided Warblers used to winter here, once upon a time.

Lack of demand has also contributed to the scarcity of certified coffees in the market. Consumers need to grow this market segment. Seeking out sources of sustainably-grown coffee, even if it lacks a certification seal, sends a message to producers. But it means doing a lot of homework. So no matter how you look at it, it is our responsibility to become informed, and we are left to make hard choices regarding our coffee buying habits ourselves.

Of all people, aren’t we as birders the ones who should be setting the example for others? Certainly we are far more informed about the habits, natural history, and declines in many migratory birds than the general public. If we can’t translate our love for birds into action in our daily lives, who are we to criticize the “drill, baby, drill” mentality of others?

To not make the effort to drink coffee that sustains the habitats not only of the creatures that bring us joy, but also of an enormous chunk of the biodiversity that sustains our planet, is not being a particularly responsible world citizen. It also indicates a belief that the actions of individuals do not matter.

The ConBio editorial ended with a quote from Mahatma Gandhi that I will repeat here:

“You must be the change you want to see in the world.”

I want to see a world filled with birds and tropical biodiversity. I want to support that, even with the small but powerful gesture of the coffee I choose to drink.

(A follow-up to this post is here.)

~*~

*You may substitute “nature lovers”, “conservationists”, “environmentalists”, or other green type and still get the picture.

Photo of Doka Coffee Estate in Costa Rica by Josh Yellin via Flickr under a Creative Commons license.

Bearzi, G. 2009. When swordfish conservation biologists eat swordfish. Conservation Biology 23:1-2.

Background information / Corporate coffee

Fight poverty: Quit drinking corporate coffee

If you are one of the 160 million coffee drinkers in the U.S., you can make a decisive, positive impact on poverty by refusing to buy coffee from, at least, Nestlè, JM Smucker, and Kraft Heinz. They sell over 30% of the retail volume of coffee in North America. Their brands include Folgers, Maxwell House, Nescafe, Gevalia, and others.

Here is how your grocery store coffee perpetuates poverty

  • Over 25 million people are directly dependent on coffee growing for a living, with another 100 million indirectly involved, including seasonal or temporary workers.
  • The majority of the coffee in the world is grown in 50 developing nations by producers that each farm less than 5 hectares of land [1].
  • Under good conditions, it costs a farmer around 30 cents (for the cheapest robusta in Vietnam) to 80 cents (for ordinary arabica from Central America; both are included in grocery store coffee) to produce a pound of coffee [2,3,4,5].
  • In 2007, even if farmers received the full market price for their coffee (and typically they do not), their profits amounted to 20 to 50 cents a pound [6,7].
  • Another way to look at it, is that only 5 to 10% of the retail price of a pound of coffee goes to the farmer [8,9,10], and the average retail price for a pound of ground coffee is well under $4.00 a pound.
  • Remember, this is a crop grown on a small plot of land harvested once a year that is probably the main source of income for an entire family.

The big multinational coffee companies perpetuate low coffee prices. Under the free market system, these four main buyers pit 25 million sellers against each other, creating a race to the bottom. They have funded and encouraged the expansion of the low-cost, low quality robusta coffee, and have spent millions of dollars developing technologies to make this bitter variety palatable. They use increasing amounts of this coffee in grocery store blends, further fueling deforestation and dragging down prices. A Wall Street journal article quoted officials from both Nestlè and Kraft as saying that they believe increasing consumer demand for coffee is the best way to help farmers, rather than paying above-market prices for their beans.

This situation is beginning to worsen, as production costs for coffee farmers around the world are rising due to the skyrocketing costs of petroleum-based fertilizers, and the global credit crunch.

The International Coffee Organization notes that low bean prices fueling corporate profits cause “entire rural communities to disappear…forcing desperate peasants into everything from crime and illicit crops to illegal migration.” [3]

Why should you care about the incomes of coffee farmers?

When coffee ceases to be profitable, the coffee fields — which for a large number of small holders are a mix of coffee, food and timber trees, and native shade trees — are cleared. They may be replaced with barren cattle pasture, subsistence crops, or some other crop less eco-friendly than coffee.

There is a direct link between environmental degradation and poverty. There is also a substantial overlap between coffee growing areas and biodiversity hotspots. Deforestation in these areas has severe consequences for loss of biodiversity. Tropical forests, even agroforestry systems, sequester many tons of carbon and help buffer against climate change.

Often the only alternative cash crop is drugs. In Latin America, the crop of choice is coca, the raw material for cocaine.

Efforts to eradicate coca in the coffee-growing nations of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are funded by your tax dollar, to the tune of $5 billion so far. This effort has been unsuccessful, and coca production continues to rise. All of the cocaine destined for the U.S. is grown in the Andes, with 90% from these three countries. The cost of drug abuse to society impacts every single one of us.

As coffee prices fall, such as during the coffee crisis in the 1990s, some farmers simply abandoned their land. Some were forced to sell their assets, such as cattle. They took their children out of school. Child malnutrition climbed. Communities wrenched apart by the coffee crisis have not fully recovered. Many farmers that stayed in coffee continue to be in debt.

This was and is a humanitarian crisis. Thousands of impoverished coffee farmers made their way north, with many crossing the border into the U.S. to seek employment.

Can switching the coffee I drink really help?

The U.S. is one of the world’s largest coffee consumers. We can make a difference. Quit supporting the poverty and environmental destruction that cheap coffee from these large multinationals perpetuates.

Good coffee for which a fair price is paid is not too expensive for most Americans. In fact, 45% of Folgers and Maxwell House purchasers have incomes greater than $50,000 a year. Even coffee that costs $15 a pound works out to well under a dollar a cup, tastes great, helps preserve biodiversity, and provides a decent living for coffee farmers.

Drink sustainable coffee!

[1] Fitter, R. and R. Kaplinsky. 2001. Can an agricultural ‘commodity’ be de-commodified, and if so, who is to gain? Institute of Development Study Discussion Paper 380, Brighton, Sussex, England.
[2] Jaffee, D. 2007. Brewing Justice: Fair Trade Coffee, Sustainability, and Survival. University of California Press.
[3] Fritsch, P. 2002. An oversupply of coffee beans deepens Latin America’s woes. Wall Street Journal.
[4] Marsh, A. 2007. Diversification by smallholder farmers: Viet Nam Robusta Coffee. Agricultural Management, Marketing, and Finance Working Document No. 19. FAO, United Nations, Rome.
[5] Anon. 2003. Guatemala Coffee Producers Cautiously Optimistic On Price Bounce, Volcafe Newsletter, Jan. 17023, 2003.
[6] International Coffee Organization. 2008. Coffee  Market Report, September 2008.
[7] Johnston, L. A. 2007. Using a value chain approach to empowering the rural poor in Kenya,Tanzania, and Mozambique.  TechnoServe presentation to Making Markets Work for the Poor, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
[8] Talbot, J. M. 1997. Where does your coffee dollar go?: The division of income and surplus along the coffee commodity chain. Studies in Comparative International Development 32: 56-91.
[9] Talbot, J. M. 2004. Grounds for Agreement: The Political Economy of the Coffee Commodity Chain. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MD.
[10] FAO. 2006. Governance, Coordination, and Distribution along Commodity Value Chains. An FAO Commodities and Trade Division workshop, April 4 and 5, 2006, Rome.

Coffee beans by Rogiro, coffee cup by Chris Campbell.

Corporate coffee / Smucker's

Folger’s finds another way to make poor beans taste "better"

Folger’s (owned by Procter & Gamble*) is introducing a new roasting method that they say is “the biggest innovation since the launch of decaf” according to an article in the New York Times. The article says

P.& G. has overhauled its main roasting plant in east New Orleans — which employs more than 400 people — to include a step it calls ”predry” or ”preroast.” Each bean is fully dried before roasting, ensuring a more evenly cooked bean, which makes it less bitter…Jim Trout, innovation leader for research and development, at P.& G., said: ”It’s like thawing a turkey before you cook it. If you don’t, the outside will be burnt and the inside will still be raw. This way it cooks evenly all the way through.”

P&G makes it sound as if they’ve come up with some necessary innovation that will improve the taste of coffee. The truth is, it’s only necessary for corporations like P&G, Kraft, Nestlé, or Sara Lee that deal is millions of tons of coffee to utilize multiple post-harvest steps to make their product drinkable.

Green coffee beans do contain water. The drying process, which takes place shortly after harvest at the farm or mill, brings this down to 11 to 12  percent (further drying makes the beans brittle and the flavor bland). Skilled coffee roasters take the unique characteristics of a particular crop into account (including water content) in order to transform the raw, tasteless bean into a the flavorful roasted product that will highlight the best features of the crop in the cup. They also roast in small batches, from 7 to 25 or perhaps 50 pounds, in order to best control the roasting process and the delicate transformations taking place.

I repeated the word “crop” to remind us all that coffee is an agricultural product, not a bolt or a fan blade. Coffee beans vary from year to year, region to region, farm to farm, and even tree to tree depending on microclimate variables.

That’s the first problem big companies like P&G face. They get tons of beans from multiple sources. Some are wetter than others, and some are drier. They roast them in 300-pound batches. If they are to get any consistency, they have to start off with a uniform product — something closer to a bolt than to an agricultural product. Pre-drying/pre-roasting would indeed even out the beans so that they can “cook evenly all the way through.”

Actually, pre-drying is not a new procedure for P&G. In 1989, P&G used it to make beans more porous in order to impregnate them with compounds that would enhance the flavor while simultaneously treating them with enzymes to extract bitter compounds (found in cheap robusta beans). The following year, P&G applied for a patent using pre-roasting for creating dark roasts. They come right out and state in the application that

Low grade coffee beans with many defects will burn and scorch more readily than wholesome beans, causing non-uniform roasted bean colors and tastes … It is an object of the present invention to dark roast poor quality beans with less tipping and burning when compared to present dark roast processing.

Pre-drying and fast roasting also results in roasted beans that are less dense. In 1991, P&G worked out the method, incorporating pre-drying, that produced reduced density (lighter by weight) high yield (same number of cups from fewer beans) coffee. P&G’s “new” roasting method saves P&G lots of money in shipping costs.

According to the data provided by P&G to the Enquirer, what was once a 13 oz. can will now weigh 11.3 oz. but still  produce 90 cups of coffee. Tens of thousands of lighter cans of coffee will add up to significant cost savings in shipping with today’s high fuel prices. If the consumer pays the same price for each can of coffee, it will generate even more profit.

Technically, it’s true that this method improves the taste of Folger’s coffee — because they use low-quality beans to begin with, as is stated in each of their patent applications. In their application “Process for making reduced density coffee,” P&G notes that robustas are the preferred bean (it also states that even moldy beans “show a slight improvement”!).

Do not support these technological “advances” that allow the big multinationals to continue to purchase, and encourage the farming of, low-quality cheap coffee beans. It pushes farmers into poverty and destroys the environment.

*JM Smucker purchased the Folger’s brand earlier this year, and the deal is expected to be completed within a few months.

Corporate coffee

Walmart’s deceptive coffee claim

Walmart claims that if every Walmart shopper bought a bag of Sam’s Choice Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified coffee, it would preserve 135,000 acres of land.

And that’s complete bull.

In researching another article, I came across Walmart’s “Sustainability Substantiation” page. It lists a number of their “earthy-friendly” products, and the supposed impact if every Walmart shopper bought one of that particular item.

The claim for Sam’s Choice Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified coffee is that if every Walmart shopper bought a bag, it would preserve 135,000 acres of land. Here’s how they calculated it:

200,000,000 = the number of Wal-Mart shoppers
0.000675 = acres of land every 12oz bag of Rainforest Alliance certified coffee helps preserve
135,000 = acres of land that 200,000,000 12oz bags of Rainforest Alliance certified coffee helps preserve

The math is correct, but the premise is completely wrong. I don’t know where they got the figure that each bag of coffee “preserves” a fraction of an acre of land, but it really doesn’t matter. The fact is that buying RA certified coffee doesn’t preserve anything. RA doesn’t take a portion of each sale and go out and purchase land and create nature preserves, and coffee farmers don’t take their small extra profit from the sales of certified beans and go purchase land to “preserve” (if anything along these lines, they’d plant more coffee, perhaps clearing land to do so). The land is already “saved,” no matter how many bags of coffee from these farms is purchased.

Further, the majority of the land (or “tropical forest”) this coffee purports to preserve (or “help preserve,” “protect,” or “save” — different terms and calculations are used on the page as well as the web page of the coffee itself), is not pristine forest or forest at all, it’s COFFEE! Some farms do include land set aside for conservation, but the bulk of certified land is planted in coffee under varying degrees of shade. As I write about here all the time, it’s better than sun coffee, but not as good as forest for biodiversity.

The ridiculousness of this claim is illustrated by playing along with Walmart’s math. What if every Walmart shopper bought one bag of Sam’s Choice RA certified coffee once a week for a year, a reasonable level of consumption? That’s 10,400,000,000 bags of coffee, resulting in 7,020,000 acres of land “preserved.”  (Let’s ignore the fact that RA certifies only a million acres of farmland worldwide — including all other crops they certify). The entire country of Brazil, the source of Sam’s Choice coffee, has about 2.3 million hectares (5,681,000 acres) planted in coffee. Look! In less than a year, Walmart shoppers can “preserve” the entire coffee production area of Brazil, the world’s largest producer of coffee!

You get the point.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not knocking the purchase of Rainforest Alliance certified coffee, from Walmart or anyplace else. I encourage it!  And arguably Walmart can expose more people to the concept of and issues around sustainable coffee than any other retailer in the world, which is terrific. I appreciate this effort at education, but abhor the obvious implication that each purchase contributes to the creation or true preservation of actual forested land. It’s misleading to consumers and does nothing to help those of us who know better to trust Walmart’s sustainability efforts.

Buying Sam’s Choice RA certified coffee doesn’t “save” or “preserve” land. It can encourage, through higher sales and more profit for the producing farms, other farms to become certified. This should result in improved environmental conditions on these farms, such as the addition of shade trees or upgraded water treatment methods — if the farms needed to make improvements to become certified, versus obtaining certification for existing sound practices.  This is a good thing. Why can’t they just say so?

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.]