100% Ético

Why fair trade?

Since the early 1990's, Café Ético has been buying coffee at fair prices directly from small-scale farmer associations in latin America. With millions of people's lives worldwide depending on the coffee trade, paying a fair price for coffee makes a significant in the lives of coffee farmers and their families. 

At Café Ético, we believe that farmers deserve a fair price for the enormous amount of labour and expertise they put into growing top quality coffee for us to enjoy. We are dedicated to creating direct, long-term relationships with coffee producers based on respect, fairness and equality. 

In conventional trade, coffee prices fluctuate wildly not just from year to year, but from month to month and day to day, making it difficult for farmers to predict what their harvest will be worth. What's more, coffee is generally a yearly harvest, and farmers often have to take out loans at the beginning of the year to invest in their crops and to pay for day-to-day living expenses. If coffee prices fall drastically, as they have often done, a farmer can lose everything paying off their loans, including their land. 

With fair trade, farmers are guaranteed a minimum price that will never fall below an established base. Farmers are entitled to deposits on their coffee at the time importers place their order, meaning they are less reliant on loans. Thanks to the stability of fair trade prices, farmers and their families are able to plan, invest and improve their standard of living. 

Why direct trade?

While fair trade is important, direct trade is just as essential to ensuring that farmers get a fair deal. 

Most small-scale coffee farmers don't have access to the overseas market. Instead, they sell to middlemen, often called 'coyotes' in Latin America, who in turn sell to exporters, who in turn sell to importers, who sell to roasters, who sell to grocery stores, who sell to us. By the time everyone has taken their piece of the profit, there's very little left for the actual coffee farmer. Even if the world market prices is reasonably high, small-scale farmers only get a fraction of that price. 

By purchasing directly from farmer associations, direct trade ensures that farmers get the highest price possible for their beans. Café Ético buys coffee directly from the Pancasán Association of Organic Coffee Farmers (ACOPAN) in Nicaragua, and from the Campesino Committee of the Highlands in Guatemala. 

Why Café Ético?

Café Ético is proud to be one of Vancouver's first fairly traded coffee importers. When we began importing coffee from farmers in Nicaragua in the early 1990's, we sat down with producers and established a fair price together that would translate into a living wage. We have consistently paid a higher price that international fair trade minimums, and today pay over 20% more than the established fair trade base price. 

Café Ético also works with donors in Canada and farmers in Nicaragua and Guatemala to help them improve their farming infrastructure, gives presentations on fair trade, and organizes tours to coffee producing countries so Canadians can learn more about the people who grow their coffee. 

What's more, Café Ético goes beyond supporting farmers. 100% of our profits support CoDevelopment Canada and their work with grassroots organizations in Latin America. Learn more about how your purchase makes the world a better place at www.codev.org.