Tag Archives: Coffee Kids

396. SCAA Expo: The view from the coffeelands

2014-03-10 Comments Off on 396. SCAA Expo: The view from the coffeelands

SCAA’s 2014 Expo opens in a little more than a month, which means it’s time for the annual CRS Coffeelands Blog SCAA preview.  After a careful review of the lecture program, I wonder whether this year’s Expo may the best ever for folks like me coming in from the coffeelands.

260. Brewing change: Rick Peyser and the rise of sustainability in specialty coffee

2012-04-18 Comments Off on 260. Brewing change: Rick Peyser and the rise of sustainability in specialty coffee

Every year the SCAA’s “big event” plays host to countless “small events” — receptions, fundraisers, competitions, press releases, big announcements, etc.  One of the “small events” I am looking forward to most eagerly this year is the release of “Brewing Change,” a new book about Green Mountain’s Director of Coffee Community Outreach and Social Advocacy […]

211. Fair Trade for All: A summary

2011-10-31 Comments Off on 211. Fair Trade for All: A summary

(NB: An updated version of this summary, including links to new content, was published on 10 November 2011.) A few weeks ago I was pulled into a meeting with Paul Rice from Fair Trade USA that sent this blog swerving off its normal path and into a collision course with controversy.  For the past month […]

210. Bill Fishbein debates Fair Trade for All

2011-10-24 Comments Off on 210. Bill Fishbein debates Fair Trade for All

In 1962, President Kennedy gathered Nobel laureates from across the Western Hemisphere at his residence in Washington.  He welcomed them by saying that the White House had never had before seen such a gathering of intellect, with the possible exception of the evenings when Thomas Jefferson dined alone. Bill Fishbein may be no Thomas Jefferson, […]

209. Bill Fishbein against FT4All

Comments Off on 209. Bill Fishbein against FT4All

Bill Fishbein, co-founder of Coffee Kids and founder of the Coffee Trust, published two comments in response to my recent post on FTUSA’s Fair Trade for All vision that were too good not to run as posts unto themselves.  In the first, which appears below, he argues against FT4All in a long and passionate comment […]

208. Bill Fishbein for FT4All

Comments Off on 208. Bill Fishbein for FT4All

Bill Fishbein, co-founder of Coffee Kids and founder of the Coffee Trust, published two comments in response to my recent post on FTUSA’s Fair Trade for All vision that were too good not to run as posts unto themselves.  In the second, which appears below, he suggests that FT4All could generate benefits for smallholder farmers […]

199. SCAA survey: How the industry gives

2011-09-21 Comments Off on 199. SCAA survey: How the industry gives

More than a year ago, I received an invitation from the SCAA (along with 4,013 others, it seems) to respond to its “Philanthropic Activity Survey.”  Today, I finally got to see the results, which suggest that the industry and the beneficiaries of its philanthropy may benefit from a more deliberate form of reinvestment in the […]

161. “And the coffee farmers thrived”

2011-05-06 Comments Off on 161. “And the coffee farmers thrived”

I have been reflecting this week on some of what I considered to be the highlights of last week’s SCAA event.  One of them came unexpectedly, during the Coffee Kids reception.  Mike Ferguson from Batdorf & Bronson, the pioneering specialty roaster and longtime Coffee Kids supporter, offered some perspectives on the lived realities of coffee […]

41. How should coffee companies invest at origin?

2010-05-03 Comments Off on 41. How should coffee companies invest at origin?

Over the the past few months, I have found myself talking with a broad range of stakeholders in the specialty coffee industry about how coffee companies are investing at origin. Here are some reflections on what I am hearing in those discussions and seeing in the field, and some ideas about the directions in which industry engagement in the coffeelands may be moving.