Danny’s Fair Trade Coffee Follow-up
I did end up going back to Danny’s last Sunday afternoon and spoke to the store manager there. She was nice and informed me that the reason why she decided to stop selling Higher Grounds Fair Trade coffee was that is was just too expensive. Specifically, shipping costs were a big part of her expense. Because Higher Grounds cannot be purchased through her distributor she was buying it directly from the company. However, whenever she buys coffee from the distributor she get’s a price break on the shipping. She talked with the owner of Higher Grounds but they were unwilling to give her a break on the shipping.
It’s unfortunate because it sounds like its a problem of two small businesses trying to do what’s most cost-effective (reasonably so) for them and not being able to meet somewhere in between to make it a successful partnership. One of the perils of the small business world I guess.
I did ask her if she was willing to talk with her distributor to see if they offer any Fair Trade brands. She said she’d check it out and told me come back in a couple of weeks to follow-up.
I was grateful that she took the time to talk with me about it and told her that if they were willing to offer Fair Trade coffee again I would remain committed to buying it there.
May 14th, 2007 at 8:39 am
For those of you who are interested in the issue of Fair trade, there is a powerful documentary out called “Black Gold,” that documents the lives of Ethiopian coffee farmers and clearly demonstrates why all of us should be asking for Fair Trade coffee. The film was recently released in the theater but is now available to the public on DVD via California Newsreel. You can read more about the documentary or pick up a copy of it here at http://newsreel.org/