Much of today's work was loosely around coffee as a Globalization example --the usual gathering up of too much material to really digest or even put into the right order, with various detours. One of them had me revisiting Max Havelaar.
I also added an entry to the disgruntlement file, to work off some irritation with institutional costiveness.
Posted by oook at March 10, 2004 09:26 PMOn the comment on Starbuck's cup, this company has done an about-face on both fair trade and organic coffee, after years of refusing to support either. At least on the policy level they have developed their own standards for their suppliers that insist on both environmental and social issues. Critics argue that this coffee is still a tiny fraction of all the coffee they move, but a company representative said last year that they are essentially paying fair trade prices (while not participating in FLO or any such) to all their contract coffee growers, about 70% of their coffee.
It's hard to know what's real in Logo Land where images are truer than fiction, but it seems to be an interesting case of social/consumer pressure obliging No. 1 to at least act like it is listening. Interesting.
Posted by: Ronald Nigh at March 17, 2004 10:00 PM