This coffee roasting company is located here in Spokane, Wa.; I would like to invite those of you who are invested in the business of transforming your consumer practices into a more sustainable living for all, to investigate exactly what ‘Fair Trade’ means… I always thought it meant that everyone involved got a fair price for their efforts and that is was a ‘short hand speak, to earmark means and methods of ensuring that all the processes connected to it were ‘fair’.
My research in creating these videos has turfed up some rather ‘inconvenient truths’ I’ve actually visited and worked in Africa and South America; so now I really know what’s going down in the coffee business. In these series of videos produced for Roast House Coffee, and you as a socially conscious consumer’. My intention is to provide information that you can prove for yourselves and then make informed choices.
I’m going to run a Competition all about the subject of coffee, and the Winner of the Questionnaire will be rewarded a pound of coffee weekly, for six months, fresh roasted, organic and shade grown, from a farm who’s efforts to remain sustainable, will be supported by you. Their coffee will be in your cup and you would have cast our vote.
All of the answers to competition questions will be found in my blogs or comments when I upload the videos.
Here’s a beginning: (some of the questions here and not the answers yet !! )
Who owns Foldger’s , Maxwell House, and Nestle’s Coffee companies? How do they buy their product, from whom, and where?
That will give you a running start…. then compare your findings to this, Spokane local, fledgling Roast House-Deborah Di Bernardo (Owner) & David Rier; (Roast Master, and is he truly ! ) unlike their competition in town, they only, source out from small farms run collectively, shade grown, organic, beans. Most other companies only have one ‘Fair Trade’, shade grown, organic beans, if that. And this is where you will need your investigators nose on: If is says ‘Fair Trade’ does it mean it has to grow in the shade and be chemical free?
When you discover how many chemicals are used to produce other coffees… you’ll become a convert to Roast House if for no other reason than to safe guard your health. Think in each cup, upwards of 1,000 chemicals… think of the earth, and then you’ll know why when I was filming in Africa, many of the plantation workers hands evidence white spots created from the effects of the chemicals they must work with. In South America, farmers report increased health benefits when chemicals are removed from production.
So, this is a rude awakening for some of you, and I’m sorry to have to deliver this news… but I did give you a solution to the problem, didn’t I !? LOL