Coffee has a sad history for many countries. Colonialism and slavery were used as a means to set up much of the global coffee production, which has left many farmers today living in remote mountainous villages, with coffee as the only possible source of income. Even though 70% of the world’s production of coffee comes from small lot farmers such as these, standard international business practice in coffee leaves these producers at the bottom of the hierarchy.

Peoples Coffee exists to offer an alternative to the normal basis of international trade in coffee; our goal is to use our trade as a mechanism for change in the coffee industry, as opposed to building profit for our shareholders.

At Peoples Coffee, we have a triple bottom line attitude towards trade: people, planet, profit. We measure our organizational success on much more than economic criteria: we direct our trade to those we can have a positive financial, social and ecological impact with.

WHO WE TRADE WITH:

Peoples Coffee trades exclusively with small lot coffee farmers who have joined together to form co-operatives.  Key to our vision is how much the farmers are paid in the hand, not just how much we paid someone for the beans – there is a big difference.

We are coffee lovers, and quality is very important to us in our buying decisions. We choose co-ops whose coffee has a quality and flavour profile we like, and will fit into our coffee programme. But we also choose co-ops that are organized in such a way that our trade will have a tangible positive impact on the sustainability of production, and on the lives and communities of the farmers who produce it.  We do this by paying more, and taking less profit.

Peoples Coffee purchases green beans from Trade Aid Importers (TAI), New Zealand’s largest green bean broker, who buy directly from the co-operatives. We forecast our coffee sales 16 months ahead, specific to each origin, and Trade Aid factor us in when they are setting contracts with the co-ops.  We then purchase green beans on a weekly basis from TAI, who pay the relevant profits back to each co-operative annually.

Together with Trade Aid Importers, we travel to origin each year to visit our co-operatives at harvest time. We believe regularly visiting our producers plays an important role in understanding the realities of farming specialty coffee, and is key to being able to best represent the true value of coffee. Through our visits we are able to see and hear current factors in production, and understand how and why the prices farmers receive in the hand is so important.

Peoples Coffee shares a vision for coffee farmers with Trade Aid Importers, and is thrilled to be supporting co-ops with them, knowing we have a clean and transparent money chain. Buying from a co-op means we have great traceability; we know who grew our coffee, where, how, and exactly how much they got paid.

WHERE WE TRADE:

Our coffee comes from small lot coffee farmers in Africa, and in Central & South America, where the latitude and longitude meet to form ideal growing temperatures and conditions.

Our small lot farmers manage parcels of land typically around 1–5 hectares in size, and farm at altitudes above 1000m, where growing conditions are great for high quality Arabica production, but mechanized farming is less common.

They generally live in villages in the mountains, and plant coffee in amongst the natural forest plants, shaded under a tree canopy. These are perfect growing conditions for producing the tastiest coffee, and have much less impact on the environment than mono-culture planting.  Coffee production can be good for biodiversity, and in many countries is allowed to be grown in state forests, as it encourages birds and insect life.

This is in stark contrast with industrial scale coffee that is grown in larger estates and plantations. These plantations are generally monoculture, meaning the landscape has been cleared to make room for lines of coffee to be planted and to allow machines to drive through to harvest cherries.

HOW WE TRADE:

Globally, coffee contracts (how much is paid for coffee) are almost always set using a differential from the New York Coffee Futures (the stock market), where coffee is traded as a commodity.  However, the prices we pay to farmers are set through discussions with the co-op to find a price that is reflective of the year they have had, the quality, and where the current NZ pricing market is at. These prices are set to be favorable to producers, but still competitive with other coffee in New Zealand.

Coffee is almost exclusively exported from producing countries in shipping containers that carry 250–275 sacks of coffee.  A container of coffee might costs over NZD $100,000 and takes 6 weeks to reach New Zealand via global shipping routes.

In order for any coffee to get to New Zealand, a farmer must sell, and a broker must buy, a whole container of coffee. So small lot farmers, who might only produce 50 sacks a year, are unable to directly access the international export market without a middle man.  However, this issue is resolved when producers of similar region and affiliation join together to form a co-op.  By pooling their resources, they can access the market with an export license, and through mutual profits, can buy and collectively own coffee infrastructure.  As a coffee community, they can share a vision and have the means to develop it.

Through our business objectives we want to support and help progress the small lot farmer’s family business.  We want to share and invest in goals with producers, and build relationships that are more than just a division of profit margins.  We want to change the value of a commodity, by recognising the quality and value of the raw product – not just by adding value to it through roasting.

This is the crux of Peoples Coffee.

When it came to ice cream, I never really stood a chance.
Ice cream was the bribe that kept us quiet on long car trips; the reward for finishing all our vegetables at dinner; the proverbial cherry on top of a day at the beach.  My love of ice cream goes beyond words (and quite often, beyond limits).  And I’m not alone: New Zealanders consume more ice cream (per capita) than any other country in the world – a whopping 23 litres, each, every year!

So I was delighted to arrive at the Peoples Coffee roastery, one chilly Wellington morning, to find the staff hovering around a tub of boutique Peoples Coffee Ca Phe Da (Vietnamese iced coffee) ice cream.  Did I look at the clock and wonder if 9am was too early for ice cream?  Certainly.  Did I sit down and indulge anyway?
Yes.  Yes I did.

The next thing I did was to invite the makers of this incredible ice cream out for a coffee (for research purposes, naturally.  The fact that they turned up with another tub of ice cream was merely a happy and unexpected bonus).

Midori and Sharon are the masterminds behind Wooden Spoon, Wellington’s first boutique freezery.  They both hail from the States, where they tell me craft ice cream already has a firm hold on the market.   The two food enthusiasts quickly saw a niche in the New Zealand market for a boutique ice cream that innovates around fresh, local ingredients.  They each started making ice cream at home and testing it out on their families and friends.  A few highly successful dinner parties later, the two friends joined forces to start their own business.

“We offer flavours you won’t find at the local dairy,” says Sharon.  Their signature flavours (available all year round) are Chocolate + Sea Salt, ANZAC biscuit, Peoples Coffee Ca Phe Da (my personal favourite) and, as of May, Breakfast of Champions (a malted milk ice cream with cornflake crunch).  They also whip up a new seasonally-inspired flavour each quarter (currently it’s Chai Chip, made with real t leaf T), and a flavour of the month, just to keep it fresh (right now it’s Orange Creamsicle).

Their commitment to fresh and local ingredients quickly saw them teaming up with like-minded businesses across Wellington.

“We chose Peoples Coffee for our Ca Phe Da flavour because we’re ethically aligned, and because we appeal to the same craft enthusiasts,” says Midori.  They’ve also collaborated with Garage Project to make special beer-infused ice creams on several occasions.

By this stage of our conversation I am literally drooling, so I ask them where I can get my hands on more of their ice cream myself.  They explain that Wooden Spoon works on a membership basis, where members sign up to a three month commitment, and get ice cream delivered fresh to their door each month.

“We’re working off the old school milk-delivery concept, where you enjoy it while it’s fresh” says Sharon.  She loves this part of the job, and tells me that some people have the lids off their tubs before she’s even made it back to her car!  (I feel an affinity with these fine people).

In the year since they launched their business, the ice cream has become so popular that there’s currently a waiting list for membership.   But the good news is that this high demand has encouraged them to expand, and they’re hoping to stock individual serves of their ice cream in a few cafes around Wellington before too long (watch this space!).

You can find out more on their website or follow them on facebook.

“Single origin espresso is about forgetting all the rules,”
René tells me, as we sit down to talk about the newest style of coffee on offer at the Constable St store.

Wait.  What? If there’s one thing I’ve learned working for Peoples Coffee, it’s that the world of coffee is governed by rules.
Precise timings, measurements, ratios and techniques that all spell the difference between an average coffee and an exceptional one.  So I’m not about to let René throw away the rulebook quite so flippantly.  My sanity depends on it.  I demand an explanation.

“Well, those concepts of precision are still there,” he assures me.  “It’s just that the approach to how the flavours are achieved is different from most roasting traditions.”

Standard espresso is made from a blend of coffee from different origins, René explains.  Roasters typically select beans with different characteristics to complement each other, and then blend them to create a big bodied cup with balance, complexity and synergy between bittersweet and chocolatey flavours.

This much I know.  But the reason that single-origin espresso is so radical, Rene continues, is because it removes the roaster’s ability to balance flavours by combining different beans – in fact, it removes the whole notion of balance full-stop.  Roasters can still tailor the roasting parameters to best enhance the natural flavours of each origin, but they can only work with the inherent flavours within that bean.     This means that each single origin creates a completely new and different espresso experience.

This difference is accentuated by the fact that single origin espresso is roasted much lighter than standard espresso, preserving more of the bean’s inherent flavours.  “These roasting techniques are very different to how normal espresso is roasted,” says René.   “With these single origin roasts, I try to create more of a fruity sweetness, and allow acidity to brighten up the cup.”

Single origins are nothing new in the world of soft brewing, but are still relatively new to espresso.  By offering single origin espresso, Peoples Coffee is joining the ranks of roasters, baristas and coffee geeks around the world who are applying the espresso method to these interesting tasting single origins.  And it isn’t merely a case of whacking different coffee into the same machine.  René spent a whole day at a coffee trade fair in Portland researching single origin espresso machines, and then weeks modifying the Constable St espresso machine himself.  The new mechanism allows the barista to alter the pressure when extracting single origins, a variable that significantly affects coffee flavours.

Single origin espresso is a great way of introducing coffee lovers to a whole host of new and interesting coffee flavours, through a medium most people are familiar with.  “Customers will constantly get to experience different coffees, and find their own favourites,” says René.  “Some of the origins really shine when served black, others taste fantastic with milk.”

Single origins are also a great way of linking consumers with the cooperatives in the developing world, that grow the coffee we all love.  “We’re buying more micro-lot coffee from our farmers,” says René. “There are a few reasons why micro lot coffee is special; it might be a small amount of an interesting variety, or it might be from a small part of one farmer’s land that produces particularly good coffee.”

You can try single origin espresso now at Peoples Coffee Constable St!  This month’s featured origin is  Sidamo Grade One, a high quality washed coffee from Ethiopia.  There will be a new origin on offer each month, so keep trying them until you find your favourite!

We’re lucky to live in a time when businesses are rising to the challenge of producing goods that are just that: good.   But this increased consumer demand for ethical choices has paradoxically prompted a wave of ‘greenwashed’ businesses, who market themselves as ‘green’ or ‘eco’ ( without actually living up to those claims) in order to compete for their slice of the ethical pie.  So how do consumers know who to trust?  How can we sort the ethical wheat from the greenwashed chaff?

Conscious Consumers was launched in 2010 to do just that: assess and accredit businesses in the hospitality industry according to their ethical business practices.  Specifically, Conscious Consumers award businesses with badges that indicate where ‘smart waste’ (ie recycling, composting, eco-packaging), ‘ethical products’ (ie fair trade, free range, organic), and ‘community’ (ie. food rescue and locally sourced products) practices are in place.  In short, they do the background research for consumers, so that we can be confident that the places we’re choosing to support are the real deal.

“We aim to make it easy and fun for consumers to find and support the great New Zealand businesses that are committed to environmentally and socially responsible business practices,” says Melissa Keys, Wellington’s Regional Coordinator.

The scheme takes a ‘vote with your feet’ approach, rewarding businesses for good practice by endorsing them to the thousands of conscious consumers nationwide.  More than 3000 people and 150 businesses have already signed up to the movement, and there are more joining each week.

And they’ve just made it even easier to find great businesses on the run.  The brand new Conscious Consumer App is now available for free download.  Consumers can find all the accredited cafes and restaurants nearby with only the click of a button, as well as local specials exclusively for conscious consumers.

Peoples Coffee has been an accredited business since the movement began in 2010.  And now Peoples is proud to take their involvement one step further, as a Conscious Consumer Ambassador.

“We invited Peoples Coffee to be a Conscious Consumer ambassador because we recognise them as a New Zealand leader in ethical business,” says Melissa.

“The Conscious Consumers movement empowers consumers to make informed choices, and businesses to employ better social and environmental practices” says Peoples Coffee General Manager Liv Doogue.  “As a 100% fair trade company, it made good sense for us to join.”

“We want to promote the values of fair trade and encourage other businesses to do the same. Consumers have the power to drive this change.”

For more info or to become a Conscious Consumer (it’s free, and takes only a moment!) see their website: www.consciousconsumers.org.nz

Harvest season is a time when coffee trees should be thriving, and heavy with leaves and fruit.  But all too often on our visit to Central America, we saw trees bare of leaves, with only a small amount of cherries.  This was due to the effects of a new strand of Roya, a leaf rust that is rapidly spreading through Latin America.  Some of these coffee producing countries have even announced a national emergency due to Roya’s damaging effects.

And at each of the four co-operatives we visited in Guatemala and Nicaragua,  Roya was a hot topic of discussion.  Roya is common to coffee, but this new strand seems to be worse than ever before, with many farmers very quickly losing much of their coffee to it.  Since the rust can remain in fallen leaves, farmers we spoke with had been advised to clear out all the coffee from affected areas and then burn the trees!  Once the land has been ‘cleaned’ then replanting can begin, but this will cause a three year lapse in production.

This will be tough for many producers that don’t have the money to buy seedlings to replant their farms, or the means to survive for the three years it takes to see new trees through to harvest.  This year, some countries are reporting that 10 -50% of their farms are effected by Roya, causing a massive reduction in harvest.  But the worst is still to come, as the trees which did produce this year must be cut down.

This is where fair trade and co-operatives become so important.  We were impressed with the proactiveness of the four co-ops we visited, and the social development programmes the co-ops had developed to support their members through tough times like these.   PRODECOOP, a Nicaraguan co-op, was a perfect example of this.  We visited a health clinic that was originally set up for diagnosing cancer in women, but has since developed its services to meet the many needs in the remote community.  We also visited some food banks, where members could sell their beans and corn at harvest time, and loan it back when food supply was scarce.

Another very important program run by PRODECOOP was food growing diversification.  The ability to grow quality food is so important.  It is the reason that many farmers can continue to farm at a loss during the tough times.  Traditionally, corn and beans are the main food grown by farmers, but this is not a full healthy diet, so the co-op is modeling and teaching their coffee farmers to diversity their food crops.

By supporting co-ops who run programmes like these, I hope that in years to come there will still be quality coffee to buy from these regions, co-ops and countries – not just Brazil and Vietnam, who are the biggest global producers and are mainly growing commodity grade coffee.

For me, these harvest trips are an opportunity to learn about the realities of farming specialty coffee in a commodity market, and to ensure that our business objectives reflect these requirements.  Through direct conversation with farmers, agronomists, mill staff, cuppers, and co-op managers, we try to get a full picture of farmers’ lives, production practices and issues in the region.

Through our business objectives, we hope to lessen the influence of foreign exchange rates and the ever changing coffee price on the stock exchange, and to address the realities of production in the price we pay for our coffee.  Peoples Coffee is committed to working with producers on our common goal: to sustainably produce better quality coffee, with better yields, at prices well above the cost of production.  We believe that through our trade we CAN and NEED to have a positive impact on our partners who produce this product we all love.

René Macaulay

January and February herald the harvest season for most coffee producing countries, and for Peoples Coffee, they herald the time to visit our producers.  This year, Liv and I flew to Central America to visit the co-operatives we buy coffee from in Guatemala and Nicaragua.

We spent three weeks staying in the villages of the four co-ops, and spent our days traveling between producers’ farms, processing mills, warehouses, cupping labs, and development programmes.  I had visited some of these co-ops four years ago, so I was very interested to see how things had progressed in the last few years.  We hired a translator for Spanish (and another for the local dialect) so that we could talk face to face with producers and best understand what is happening in their lives.

Our first visit was with Guaya’b, a co-operative of indigenous coffee growers in Huehuetenango, in the highlands of western Guatemala.

My 2009 visit to Guaya’b had been a sobering one, as the co-op told me about the wide-ranging and complex issues they were being confronted with.  So on this trip, it was wonderful to see that the determination of the coffee farmers, the quality of their coffee, and the support from buyers like Trade Aid, had kept them going through these difficult times.

Guaya’b co-operative has spent the last few years building a large wet mill, with fermentation tanks, a drying patio, and two mechanical dryers. At the time of my visit in 2009, financial issues were stalling the building of the mill, so I was pleased to see that it was now finished and already operating near capacity!  This new infrastructure has greatly improved the harvest process for the co-op’s members, who no longer have to spend every evening of harvest season hand de-pulping, washing and drying their coffee at home.  It also gives the co-operative better control over consistency and quality, and the ability to develop new quality processes at the mill.  I enjoyed the samples on the cupping table; their exceptional Huehuetenango coffee tasted beautiful.

Guaya’b are a small co-op, producing 11 organic containers of coffee per year (fair trade co-ops typically produce between 8 and 30 containers), and due to their size must contract out some of their quality controls and processes.  This trip was an opportunity for me to spend some time with Lucas, the manager, to do an education session on sample roasting and cupping to SCAA protocols.  We discussed the importance of standards like SCAA, to ensure that globally we are all roasting, cupping and using the same vocab to assess coffee.

I also spent time with the main staff of the wet mill (where coffee cherries are processed to beans), discussing and learning about how they operate, and how and why they do what they do.  From my experiences on previous harvest trips to other co-ops, I was able to share some ideas and standards I have seen successfully operating elsewhere, and ways to increase cup quality.

Harvest trips are an exciting time to for a roaster to learn more about the coffee production process, and after years of visits, it was very rewarding to be able to add some value back to our producers in ways like this.

René Macaulay

You can read more about René and Liv’s harvest trip in next week’s blog, so check back in with us!

Like most children of the eighties, I’ve always harboured a secret desire to be a Ghostbuster – if only for the chance to partake in the sticky demise of the (almost certainly delicious) Marshmallow Man.  But in lieu of any actual ghosts, I’ll have to settle for busting something a little closer to home.  Namely, coffee myths.

Over the years I’ve frequented Peoples Coffee, I’ve had a fair few of my own coffee myths politely busted by baristas.  I’ve also taken great delight in “politely” passing on this newfound knowledge to those still living under their own mythical fog.

The five coffee myths that I hear most commonly are as follows: (cue the Ghostbusters theme)

1.  You should keep your beans in the fridge/freezer
Please don’t.  The fridge is actually one of the worst places you could store coffee.  Coffee beans are sensitive to moisture, heat, light and air – all of which your fridge is merrily circulating in abundance.  There is nothing in coffee that turns rotten at room temperature, so simply seal your coffee in an airtight bag and store it in a cool, dry, dark place.  Freezing coffee is an equally bad idea, as it can contaminate your coffee with other smells (a little seafood with your coffee, perhaps?).

2. The fresher, the better
Surprisingly, this isn’t true!  Coffee beans take about six hours to degas after roasting, which causes the flavours to change considerably.   So allow the beans a day or so to settle and develop (check the date of roasting on your coffee bags).  Peoples Coffee’s roaster René recommends that for soft brewing (plunger and filter coffee), beans are best from day two.  For espresso, the beans are optimal between days 3-9.  (You can read more about this in René’s blog post, here).

3. Light roasts contain less caffeine
This isn’t strictly true.  At the temperatures Peoples Coffee roast their coffee, the beans have the same amount of caffeine whether they are roasted dark, light, or not at all.  It’s just that the beans lose weight as they are roasted, so you would need to grind more dark-roasted beans than you would light-roast to get the equivalent weight in coffee, and thus there would be more caffeine in the dark roast (and less in the light roast).  Capiche?

4. Coffee cures hangovers
False, I’m sorry to say.  It’s true that caffeine wakes us up and stimulates the brain in many spectacular ways, but it actually has zero impact on sobriety.  And because coffee can dehydrate us, it may even make a hangover worse!

5. If I grind my coffee finer, I can use less of it
Absolutely not.  This is likely to lead to an over-extracted brew and a bad tasting coffee!

So there you have it, coffee demystified.  And I’m confident that the truth tastes better than a Marshmallow Man ever could.

What other coffee myths have you heard?  Any others you’d like busted?  Leave us a comment below!

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Trifecta takes all the fun out of coffee-brewing.
Designed to remove the variation that arises when a human is making the coffee, the Trifecta is a high-tech filter coffee machine that produces a cup of non-pressurised coffee at the mere push of a button.

And I must admit: I’m prepared to hate it.  It looks a bit like a rocket ship, with all the bells and whistles, and even has a light that flashes on while it’s brewing.  Call me old-fashioned, but I’m more of a start-from-scratch, do-it-by-hand kind of girl.

But two mind-blowing cups of coffee, and one steep learning curve later, I’m a convert to this new fandangled method of brewing coffee.  It may be mechanized, but it’s obvious just how much human love and attention is poured into the machine.  Once set, the machine will produce a cup of coffee that tastes optimal every time; but actually programming these parameters is a task that requires an abundance of patience and good taste.  Thankfully, that task belongs to Peoples Coffee’s roaster Rene, who spends hours working behind the scenes on the Trifecta; tasting, adjusting and perfecting the parameters, in order to best showcase the unique flavours of each origin.

The Trifecta is so named because there are three stages in its brew cycle: preinfusion (the wetting of the coffee grinds), turbulence (the extraction of the coffee), and press-out (filtering the brewed coffee out from the grinds).  Each stage can be precisely programmed to control variables like temperature, intensity, and duration.  The whole process takes only a matter of minutes, and the end result is an amazing coffee.  It’s got more punch than a chemex or V60 (due to the fact that it use a metal, rather than a paper, filter) and is more akin to a plunger coffee in intensity.  But its subtleties of flavour are more apparent, and as it cools they change and sweeten.

“The Trifecta is brilliant,” says Henry, barista at the Constable St store.  “We can pump out fantastic filter coffees even when the cafe is flat out, without taking five minutes to brew it.”

Peoples Coffee Constable St is the only place in Wellington where you can try Trifecta coffee.  Get it while it’s hot!

When I heard a place called Crumpet had opened up in Wellington, I was sold, without ever having set foot in the place.  A cafe specializing in crumpets?  There are not words to express how much I approve of this.  Just…yes.

Located in the historic Opera House building and restored with some classic English flair, Crumpet looks every bit the place to find Winston Churchill puffing on a cigar and spreading butter on a crumpet.

And if, like me, you assumed that Crumpet was named after those very hallmarks of buttery British goodness, then you – like me – were wrong.

“’Crumpet’ is actually an English term for a pretty lady,” Ren Boon, co-owner of Crumpet, tells me with a laugh.  (The framed pictures of pretty ladies adorning the walls suddenly come into focus.)
“The crumpets on the menu actually came second to that.”

Which is not to say that you’ll be disappointed if you’ve come for the food, because the menu boasts an impressive array of sweet and savoury crumpets, made specially for the shop and served up with a selection of amazing toppings (think, ricotta, pear, candied pecan and maple syrup; or buffalo mozzarella and prociutto with tomato and basil).

But Crumpet has a lot more on offer than the name first belies.  By day it’s a café, serving up classic and gourmet crumpets with a full range of Peoples Coffee espresso and Six Barrel Soda.

But by night it transforms into a wine bar, specializing in tailor-made cocktails to suit absolutely every taste.

“We don’t have a cocktail list,” says Ren.  “We just ask people what they like and then personalise a drink to their tastes.”
Between them, he estimates they know as many as five hundred cocktails – including a contemporary spin on the 15th Century English posset, and a range of cocktails made on the espresso machine.

The Boon Brothers are definitely a force to be reckoned with.  Ren brings more than twelve years of experience mixing cocktails to the partnership, while Ian honed his barista skills at Wellington mainstays Lamason and Monterey.  It’s been nearly a year since the two brothers pooled their skills to open a café wine bar with the best of both worlds.  And it’s going down a treat with locals.  While they have never advertised, word of mouth has driven Wellingtonians to Crumpet in droves.

“It’s been so much fun,” says Ren.  “We have great people here. I can honestly say I’ve liked every single person who has walked through the door.”

And they have a few more surprises up their sleeves.  There’s a lot more coming in the way of coffee, starting with cold brew in the next few weeks.  Also keep a look out for some new menu items, and further additions to the shop.

All the more reason to go back again, and soon.

You can find Crumpet at 109 Manners St.  Open everyday until late (weekdays from 8am, weekends from 10am.)

Progressing our position as leading fair traders

Fair trade has always been at the heart of our business.

After eight years in the coffee trade, we remain captivated by the idea that our company can positively impact and better represent the smallest and most marginalized coffee producers in the world.

Our focus is on small-lot coffee producers, not on private estates, plantations or larger family-owned farms.  Our farmers each work with 1-2 hectares of land and are all owner/members of cooperatives. It is a priority for us that these small-lot farmers, who produce some 70% of the world’s coffee, can live sustainably and with dignity, and can determine their own futures and decisions as much as possible.

At Peoples Coffee we have set a high bar for ourselves as fair traders, and now we want to raise it even further.

We purchase only fair trade certified, organic coffees from small farmer cooperatives around the globe. We travel annually to origin, and have visited all the cooperatives we buy from at least once.  We hear and document farmers’ stories firsthand to understand the challenges they face, hear how well our trade is working for them, and to share in their dreams for themselves, their children and their communities.

This year, we are excited to share our next step on this journey to support and show solidarity with small farmers, and to deepen and create new possibilities for progressive fair trade in coffee.

Peoples Coffee are now signed, paid and fully-fledged members of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO).
Not to be confused with the WTO, the WFTO is not run by cavalier bankers or Wall Street cronies; rather it is the leading authority on fair trade across trading commodities and is small producer focused and engaged.

Shifting focus from individually certified products, WFTO membership is solely for those whose entire organization exists primarily to support small producers. The only other business in New Zealand to be a full member of the WFTO is (unsurprisingly) Trade Aid.

We are stepping up our position to pioneer new ways of supporting small coffee farmers. In a consumer world where fair trade messages are regularly watered down, falsely appropriated, and even written off as a passing fad, we are strengthening our unique position as progressive fair traders, not sitting around waiting for the market to dictate its terms to us.

What does this mean for our customers?

The FLO certification mark will no longer be on our packaging or be part of our branding. The Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO) recognizes WFTO members as genuine fair traders, so rather than holding two independent certifications, we have simply chosen the one that better fits our unique position as a 100% fair trade principled and driven company, not just a line of fair trade products. The WFTO will launch a product mark in 2013 for customers who like to have a guarantee mark on their bags.

Our WFTO status will enable us to define more clearly the issues facing small farmers today and into the future, and to work with others to deepen the fair trade movement.  We will continue to be members of the Fair Trade Association of Australia and New Zealand (FTAANZ), and will remain actively engaged in the Wellington Fair Trade City Trust.

This move also gives our business more focus. We now have policy drivers from the WFTO that require us to continually question how we can do a better job of supporting producers, advocating for fair trade, and showing more business transparency in these endeavours. The WFTO’s ten principles of fair trade will be a clear and annually present guide for asking the hard questions of ourselves, and how well we are performing as a fair trade business.

We think of this as part of our growing up as a business, as coffee professionals, and as people wanting to give small producers around the world a fighting chance of having a progressive and sustained way of life in the coffee trade.

In short, we want to be better at being who we are.
 We hope that you, our customers and supporters, hold us to nothing less.

Matt Lamason                      Liv Doogue
Director/Founder               General Manager