Have your say!

I am a pretty good little capitalist (the point being I am not a socialist, anticapitalist or left wing nut) and bloody proud of my business but having spent twenty fantastic and exciting years in the coffee business, and having travelled to origin countries, and having children of my own - if I don't try and make radical changes - I don't deserve to be in the coffee trade!'

Just because you see an Ethical statement or badge along side your favourite food or coffee - don't ever assume that the company is ethical. Let's face it, unfortunately most of the time it's a marketing strategy to gilt the edges of our social awareness and give us that ‘feel good factor' comforting us that we have done our bit and contributed to some poor soul living in the middle of nowhere battling to put food on the table (often times they don't even own a table) for their children.

Early on, I made the decision that my company would make a difference to the lives of hundreds of coffee farmers who grow our coffee and only because I was lucky enough to have been allowed to join a group on a trip to India led by a fantastic woman Anne Lowen. At this stage, I had developed a serious passion for coffee but had never travelled to an origin country or anywhere in the third world (as it was known back then).

The poverty and hopelessness experienced within two hours of arriving in Bombay compounded by what I believed were historical illnesses such as leprosy (and travelling through Rajasthan, Jodhpur, Jaipur, Jaiseelmer, Agra, Varanasi and back through New Delhi) gave me a true understanding of just how ignorant I was to the living and working conditions outside of Europe and the States. India is by far the most wonderfully exciting and fun places in the world to visit - even with all its destitute street kids and the most disgusting of all racial programmes on the planet, the Caste system. As always, it is the people and cultures that make India so unique.

Now in a pretty bold step within the secretive coffee and food industry we have decided to be the first coffee company to openly declare the International ‘C' Commodity price of coffee per pound versus our minimum, average and the price of our fairtrade coffee per pound of green bean. Our competitors in Ireland, the UK and Europe will reel in horror at the potential that our transparency (along with help from the .org gang) could lead to more change and balance for the farmer.

As always, we are the first to admit we don't have it perfect yet, but we are trying genuinely hard. The true cost that the farmer could receive should be substantially higher than what they are currently receiving. We pay a fair price for our coffees and have traded successfully for 9 years.

The New York Coffee Exchange, NYBOT, or as we know it, the coffee ‘C', was originally set up in 1882 by real coffee merchants to bring some stability to what was then a chaotic and seriously high risk market with very frequent supply and demand issues resulting in either huge gains or losses without the option to hedge (either to reduce or cancel) your risk position of constant supply and price. The risk of bankruptcy in the States and Europe was extremely high for coffee traders. One hundred and twenty six years later, it is incredible that the NYBOT ‘C' futures coffee market has a complete monopoly position on all Arabica coffees traded throughout the world today. The Robusta Liffe London market is even more exploitive and disgustingly bent towards multinationals. The futures coffee market today has nothing to do with the consistent supply of real physical coffee. Traders have become perfectionists in speculating for investors and pension funds, and couldn't give a damn whether they are buying or selling coffee or cotton. On the 12 January 2007 NYBOT merged with ICE (the leading International US Electronic Energy and now soft commodities exchange for profit PLC. They paid around $1.8 billion (ref nyboy.com) Can you imagine how may thousands of farmers and their fore-fathers before them tolled for years and with little or nothing in return to help create this value...

The coffee market must be worth in excess of $65 billion in sales revenue world wide and is dominated by 4 major multinationals: Proctor and Gamble, Nestle, Sara Lee and Philip Morris (one of which happens to be the largest tobacco company in the world.

What is absolutely so unique about the billions in profits that are made from coffee by us all is the fact that millions of farmers, their families and workers are being bled to death with no regard or respect for their hard work, the quality of their coffee, their sustainable future or the education of their families....this is simply wrong! Have your say....