Starbucks

Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Starbucks to discontinue Organic Shade Grown Mexico

Late last month, Starbucks announced they will be offering four “Blonde” roast coffees beginning in January 2012. This comes after many years of complaints from consumers that the company roasted all their beans too dark, hence the often-heard “Charbucks” moniker.  The lighter roasts will be two new regular coffees, Starbucks Veranda Blend (using Latin American beans) and Starbucks Willow Blend (Latin America and East Africa), a decaf (Decaf Starbucks Willow Blend), and an instant (Starbucks VIA Ready Brew Veranda Blend).

Rumor has it that four of their current offerings will be replaced by the new coffees. They are the Fair Trade certified Café Estima Blend, the decaf Café Verona, the decaf House Blend, and the Organic Shade Grown Mexico. In response to my specific inquiry, I have confirmation from Starbucks that the latter will indeed be discontinued.

We reviewed the Organic Shade Grown Mexico here awhile back, and provided a lot of background information. In a nutshell, this coffee was sourced from farmers in Chiapas in the buffer zone of the El Triunfo Biosphere Reserve. The sourcing of coffee from this area was done in partnership with Conservation International, and lead to the development of Starbucks’ green coffee sourcing standards program, known as CAFE [Coffee and Farm Equity] Practices. The Starbucks/Conservation International partnership began in 1998, continued for years with substantial reinvestments by Starbucks, being known as the Conservation Coffee program.

Starbucks just recently renewed the partnership for two years and $3 million, with a focus on climate change. The renewal will mark the beginning of work in Brazil, and expand on programs in Sumatra and Chiapas. However, I was unable to get a direct answer from Starbucks on whether or not they will still be providing an organic, shade-grown Mexico coffee as a seasonal offering, whether it will be used in one of the new Blonde blends, or in some other blend.

With the advent of the Conservation International partnership and the development of their CAFE Practices, Starbucks imposed quality standards on the Chiapas cooperatives supplying  this coffee. While it supplied significant benefits to the co-ops initially, many objected to the requirements and quit selling some or all of their coffee to Starbucks once their own capacity and abilities improved. These included CESMACH (Ecological Farmers of the Sierra Madres of Chiapas), Organizacion de Productores Cafetaleros de Ángel Albino Corzo (OPCAAC), Finca Triunfo Verde Sociedad Civil, and Organizacion Regional de Productores Agroecologicos (ORPAE). At least one source [1] indicates that many of the suppliers to Starbucks in this area of Chiapas are small producers that do not belong to cooperatives. Perhaps there is not enough volume to support a quasi-single-origin coffee from this region any longer.

In any event, the Blonde roast roll out will coincide with an overhaul of coffee packaging/branding at Starbucks to emphasize the three roast levels (with the lightest being Blonde, which is still roasted to second crack) rather than origin, and that may also play a role in the discontinuation of this coffee.

I have generally recommended the Organic Shade Grown Mexico to friends who are Starbucks customers looking for their most eco-friendly offering.  While I generally believe that the Starbucks CAFE Practices environmental standards, which apply to nearly all their coffees, are quite strong and relevant, I’ll have to reassess to come up with a specific recommendation once the Mexico disappears from shelves.

Renard, M.-C. 2010. In the name of conservation: CAFE Practices and Fair Trade in Mexico. Journal of Business Ethics 92:287-299.

Coffee news and miscellany / Starbucks

Sips: Starbucks news

Some recent news from/about the Mermaid.

  • Starbucks plans to develop its own coffee farm in Yunnan, China. A move I think is (relatively speaking) good news for the environment there. In my post on coffee growing in China, I noted deforestation and high chemical use are problems with coffee growing in China, which is dominated by Nestlé for instant coffee. I also mentioned that Starbucks used Yunnan-grown arabica in one of their local coffees; the quality was not up to snuff for a single-origin offering and it had to be used in a blend (“South of the Clouds”).  Starbucks wants to increase quality, and will be training farmers and will establish a farmers’ support center, (its third globally, others are in Costa Rica and Rwanda). The growing operation will no doubt have meet the standards of the rest of their suppliers, which include very good environmental criteria. This has to be an improvement over what I believe is the norm for coffee growing in China.
  • First, Starbucks announced it was terminating its partnership with Kraft, which has distributed The Mermaid’s coffee to grocery stores since 1998. Kraft was unhappy. This sparked speculation that Starbucks might want to expand in the single-cup market (currently the closest it comes is with its Via instant coffee). Green Mountain Coffee Roasters was the presumed partner, since the main alternative is Kraft’s Tassimo brand. Then Starbucks announced it would launch its own single-brewer. Stay tuned.
  • GreenBiz.com had a nice article on Starbucks’ green buildings initiative, featuring LEED-certified buildings, including a roasting facility and all new retail stores. More at the Starbucks web site.

Certifications / Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Starbucks CAFE Practices

[Some updates at the end of the post, the latest in July 2026]

I have provided information on the five major certifications applied to coffee: organic, Fair Trade, Smithsonian Bird-Friendly, Rainforest Alliance, and Utz Certified.

Starbucks does sell certified organic and Fair Trade coffees. You can see how much coffee they (and other major companies) purchase and how much is eco-certified in this data table, which is kept updated.

Starbucks also has its own green coffee sourcing standard, known as CAFE (Coffee and Farm Equity) Practices.  It was developed in partnership with the non-profit environmental group Conservation International and SCS Global Services. (SCS), an independent evaluation and verification company. The CAFE Practices program covers four categories. Two, product quality and economic accountability, are criteria that are required by all Starbucks suppliers. The other two categories are social responsibility and environmental leadership. I’ll focus on the environmental criteria.

How it works

Like some other certifications, CAFE Practices operates on a point system. The social responsibility and environmental leadership categories are divided into sections. A least 60% of possible points are needed for preferred supplier status, and 80% for strategic supplier status. These suppliers get enhanced pricing and contract terms. [Update: the average score was 80%, and 60% of supplies were preferred or strategic; these data were for all new and renewing farms in the year 2012.]

A point is awarded for compliance with individual “indicators.” In the current version, there are 185 total indicators for large suppliers (greater than 12 ha) and 124 for smallholders, including those who are part of a cooperative.

In the section “Coffee Growing — Environmental Leadership” 45 points are possible (42 for smallholders).  Many of the individual indicators are actually multiple variations on the same criteria; only one of them can be counted for a point. For instance, the indicators dealing with organic mulch award a point for either 25% of the production area being covered by organic matter, 50%, or 100% — three indicators but only one point possible.

What kinds of environmental criteria are included?

The “Coffee Growing — Environmental Leadership” section covers water body protection, including criteria for width and type of vegetated buffer zones along permanent and seasonal water bodies, and use of chemicals or waste storage near water bodies; protection of soil resources, including measures to control and prevent erosion and use of organic mulches and cover crops; conserving biodiversity, including maintaining a shade canopy, protecting wildlife, and establishment of conservation areas; and environmental management, including pest and disease control.

There is an additional section that deals with environmental issues having to do with coffee processing, specific to either wet processing or dry processing, which includes indicators on water conservation, waste management, and energy use.

A closer look at Conserving Biodiversity

This particular subsection has three indicators that are mandatory: 1) native trees are only removed if they are a hazard to people or “significantly” compete with coffee plants, 2) hunting or commercial collecting of flora or fauna is prohibited, and 3) no conversion of natural forest to agricultural production.

Indicators specific to maintaining shade cover include percent cover, canopy tree diversity and native species benchmarks, and preservation of epiphytes and vines.

How does this stack up?

The Starbucks CAFE Practices environmental criteria address many more relevant ecological issues than either Fair Trade certification standards or UTZ Certified Good Inside standards. Although there is some lack of specificity (e.g., what constitutes native trees being in “significant” competition with coffee plants?), they are far less generic and more comprehensive than Fair Trade or UTZ standards. While the large number of indicators from which to garner points seems to make it easy for suppliers to attain favored status, I think that their division into sections and subsections covering a wide range of ecological issues is more valuable and should result in more eco-friendly farms than fewer, weaker, or more vague “requirements.”

To compare Starbucks CAFE Practices environmental criteria with those of Rainforest Alliance would probably take sitting down and mock-scoring some imaginary farms. I suspect that a farm meeting Rainforest Alliance’s minimum environmental standards would turn out to be using more sustainable growing methods than the typical Starbucks preferred supplier — although a lack of standardization among the standards might make that assessment difficult (Rainforest Alliance uses 99 criteria in 10 principals, with percentage thresholds for certification). It also wouldn’t surprise me that a Starbucks strategic supplier that scored highly in the Environmental Leadership sections could beat out a Rainforest Alliance-certified farm.

Because the Smithsonian Bird-Friendly biodiversity criteria are so well-developed and targeted, and since their certification also requires organic certification, their environmental standards are the strongest.

Overall, I’m generally impressed with the scope and level of detail of Starbucks CAFE Practices environmental standards, and find them superior to those of some highly-regarded certifications.

Criticisms and more resources

There have been accusations that the reality on the ground with some Starbucks suppliers is inconsistent with CAFE Practices standards. In some cases at least, that is true, but it is also true with other certifications; Starbucks tends to receive a lot of scrutiny. Third party verification systems are subject to the same corruption and deceit whether they are certifying organic products or Starbucks coffee. There are plenty of places where compliance can break down, and that’s the topic of a separate investigation.

To examine all of the Starbucks CAFE Practices criteria yourself, download the standards documents which are available online at the SCS web site. You can also download current and past Global Responsibility reports at the Starbucks website.

Updates:

  • Daily Coffee News summarizes Starbucks’ 2025 Global Impact Report, which includes some revisions to its CAFE Practices program including coffee sourcing.
  • This post discusses how the CAFE Practices program is assessed and its impacts.
  • In May 2015, I wrote an overview and update on Starbucks CAFE Practices for Daily Coffee News — read it here.
  • Starbucks has initiated other coffee sustainability projects, including farmer support centers, tree planting, coffee community support of several kinds, farmer loans, and co-founding the Sustainable Coffee Initiative. A summary about these efforts is at their website.

Starbucks coffee cup by Rudolf Schuba under a Creative Commons license.

Retail and specialty roasters / Starbucks

Starbucks news

Some recent sustainability-related news regarding Starbucks:

  • Starbucks has a new Conservation International-branded loyalty card. Every time a customer uses a CI Starbucks card from now through the end of 2010, five cents will go to Conservation International for forest preservation. Starbucks cards are re-loadable cards used for purchases at their stores; registered cards earn rewards. These cards are only available in U.S. stores, but I presume that, like other cards, can be used at any store worldwide.Conservation International has been partnered with Starbucks for over a decade. They worked together to develop Starbucks’ Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices coffee sourcing guidelines and created a funding mechanism to address climate change in coffee growing regions. You can read more about their project that led to Starbucks Organic Shade Grown Mexico coffee variety here. CI’s Charity Navigator profile here.
  • Starbucks has become a sponsor of the Betacup challenge, which is looking for a way to reduce the waste from the 58 million paper coffee cups that are thrown away annually. The company will furnish the $20,000 of prize money. Small potatoes for Starbucks, but they have their own cup-related initiatives (see below) and cups are not a huge part of the company’s environmental footprint. Starbucks has already committed to making all of its cups recyclable or reusable in the next five years (including their plastic beverage cups), part of a suite of sustainability issues in their Shared Planet program. After all, it’s up to the consumer to reuse, recycle, or bring their own mug.
  • A Starbucks store in France won a sustainable retail design award. This store was the first international store that went for LEED-certification, indicating building sustainability. The company plans to have all its new stores LEED-certified. It also has a LEED-certified roasting facility, and the Starbucks headquarters in Seattle is the oldest and largest building to get LEED certification.

Starbucks cup photo by Josh Semans under a Creative Commons License.