Thursday, October 14, 2004


the facts

"what is the most valuable item of international trade in the world today? no surprise for anyone who's read the headlines for the past decade or two: it's oil. but you might be surprised to discover that the second most valuable item is coffee. . . .

four companies control the majority of the global coffee trade -- at least 60%: nestle (makers of nescafe and several other leading brands), philip morris (maxwell house) [sic], procter & gamble (folgers) and sara lee (chock full o' nuts). . . . the global coffee industry earns some $60 billion annually, and yet less than 10% of that $60 billion actually ends up with the people who work on the farms."

well, i think the author is confused about maxwell house, which according to their website, is a kraft product (as by the way is the coffee labelled starbucks in the supermaket; kraft makes and distributes that under license).

p. morris used to own kraft, did various corporate gyrations to spin off kraft and itself, and then formed a new parent as altria, so as to insulate its food brands from negative tobacco backlash. confusing, no?

so technically i believe you have to say altria owns maxwell house thru its majority control of kraft. still the gist is true: it's the bare bones fact of the so-called "coffee crisis."

the author forgot to mention another significant player: tchibo, but otherwise is exactly on target.

as you might expect from the source, the piece has an interesting perspective on the concept of organic and fair-trade coffee too.

if you are interested in this wild idea of eco-kosher -- which is actually an inter-faith effort, like the equal exchange program -- let me quietly note that long-time bccy-pal gillies coffee has for years been providing kosher, fair-trade, and organic coffees. . .

posted by fortune | 7:38 AM | top | link to this | email this: | | | 0 comments