I must admit I like Starbucks coffee. I like the full-bodied taste and I also enjoy the pleasant atmosphere in a lot of their stores. I applaud them for treating their employees well and supporting progressive causes.
It is no secret that some progressives don't like the company because they feel they drive independent coffee shops out-of- business. Many also feel they represent a negative side to globalization through the homogenization of global culture.
However, there's another story out there that doesn't get much attention: Intellectual Property Rights, Royalties and Trademarks. The dispute is essentially over money and involves a very poor country and a very rich company. This shouldn't come as a surprise to many: there were lobbying, public relations and the refrain of social responsibility.
Recently, Ethiopia and Starbucks had a dispute over these issues with a mutually beneficial "agreement" being reached in June. Was this agreement fair? To whom? Will we ever know? Should consumers care how much money a coffee farmer receives from every cup they purchase?
3 comments:
I suspect that since Starbuck's revenue is probably larger than the GDP of Ethiopia, it wasn't a bad deal for Starbucks.
I'd like to point out, however, that I believe that Starbucks puts independent coffee shops out of business is a myth, or at least poorly informed.
There realy wasn't a market for coffee until Starbucks got into the game. Then independents came around, and then Starbucks tried to locate near them, in many cases to take advantage of their draw (which in turn, took advantage of Starbuck's draw years earlier)..
On Tues. March 18, at Noon, Jon Rosenthal, a former student of mine (Colby in the 70's) and co-founder of Equal Exchange Fair Trade Coffee and now Ole Fair Trade Bananas, as well as a co-founder of the Fair Trade movement in the U.S. will be speaking in the USM/Lewiston-Auburn College, upstairs lounge. His talk is free and open to the public!
Well said.
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