mtcodex

A quick search in my iTunes library reveals four tracks with ‘California’ in the title:

1. California – Gomez
2. California Girls – The Beach Boys
3. California Waiting – Kings of Leon
4. Going To California – Led Zeppelin

The last of these I listened to three years ago, back in the days when I had a CD player, on my way over to California for the first time to see Megan. This doesn’t have anything in particular to do with anything except that I’m at the airport waiting for my flight to go and see her, now my eighth trip to San Francisco.

This week has been really hectic, I’ve wanted to blog some things but I haven’t had the time or energy. So now that I’m relaxing a wee bit (it’s always good to be as relaxed as possible when flying) here is one of those things I wanted to talk about, coffee.

This week I saw an advert for ‘Kenco Pure’. Instant coffee sourced from single countries. The Telegraph have a big thing about this on their website, and call me suspicious by nature but Kenco Pure also happens to be on their banner ads right now – coincidence? So what’s my beef? Well it’s this. Kenco is owned by Kraft, which was recently spun off from Phillip Morris, who among other things produce most of the worlds cigarettes. As many will know smoking inhibits your taste buds, perhaps a reason many smokers like strong coffee and lots of salt.

Anyway, Kenco as a brand in Kraft Foods portfolio only serves one purpose – to make money. If they don’t they’ll be folded or sold. The reason this is important is their primary motives. You see, Kenco has slapped on some Rainforest Alliance Certified™ badge that looks a whole lot similar to Fair Trade. But it’s not. Don’t get me wrong, sustainable development is a good and important thing, but how much does it do for the people growing the coffee? Well in Kenco’s case it offers them 20% above markets rates, around 63¢¹ per pound. That’s nice, but it pales into insignificance against Fair Trades flat rate of $1.21 per pound.

But are Kenco even claiming they’re being ethical? I think the answer is yes. Go back to the almost certainly sponsored Telegraph article. Look at that heading ‘ethical sourcing’ What does it actually say about ethical sourcing? Nothing at all, it just talks about how coffee tastes.

Kenco want a piece of the “ethical consumer” market, at the minimum cost to themselves. Being certified by the Rainforest Alliance is a great thing, but it’s not enough. Those consumers who really are ethical should send out a strong message by not purchasing these products and encouraging friends to buy Fair Trade instead.

¹ Prices come from an article in the Guardian, November 2004.