How to buy fair trade coffee

• Basically, fair trade means the farmer who produced the product got a fair price for it. This is very important for the livelihood of coffee farmers. Millions of coffee farmers can barely feed their families because they get almost no money for their coffee beans unless it’s fair trade.

• How do you find it? Look for the black and white fair trade logo which is marked on all fair trade coffee and fair trade coffee beans at every Starbucks, although you may have to ask for it.

• Supermarkets are beginning to carry it as well, in many cases. If you don’t find it, ask your grocer for it. Sometimes it just takes some customer requests.

Every time you buy a fair trade product you can feel good knowing that you're contributing to farming communities around the planet.

Hi, I’m Anna Lappe and I’m the co-author of Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen, and I’m here at Think Coffee in New York City to tell you about a term you’ve probably been hearing a lot about, but might not exactly be sure what it means: fair trade. It’s really a simply concept, and this is the idea: that every time you buy a fair trade certified product, you are guaranteed that the farmer who produced that product got a fair price. When it comes to coffee, it makes a huge difference. Right now, tens of millions of coffee farmers all around the world can barely feed their families because they get so little for what we spend on coffee.

How do you know when you’ve found fair trade product? It’s actually quite simple. You just look for this little black and white logo, and when you see it, you know that you’ve found a fair trade certified product.

Okay. So, well, fair trade sounds great, but where can you find it? At places like this café, in New York City, every single cup of coffee is fair trade. At other places, you have to do a little bit more work. At Starbucks, ask for it, but every single Starbucks has fair trade coffee. And a lot of supermarkets now carry fair trade products as well. If you don’t find fair trade in your local supermarket, don’t be afraid to ask for it. You’d be surprised at how many store managers say, all it takes is one customer asking for it, and they’ll stock fair trade products on their shelves.

Finally, the best thing about fair trade is that every single time you buy a fair trade product, and for me, I drink coffee every day, so every single day, I can feel good knowing that I’m contributing to farming communities all around the planet.