Each for All: The Co-operative Connection

Today on Each for All we take a look at Coffee and Ethical Purchasing.

As you can imagine, the high-paced environment of our offices at the Canadian Social Economy Hub and the BC Institute for Co-operative Studies is fueled by a regular caffeine intake. We are lucky to have a relationship with Level Ground Trading, a local company that imports fair trade coffee and other products: They allow us to bulk purchase large amounts of their beans and sugar, so that we always have an amply supply on hand! Despite the fact that we drink coffee every day, Each For All has yet to focus on the issues surrounding the global coffee market: That’s what we’re going to look at today.

To provide us with insight into this topic, we speak with Bob Yellin, from the Green Coffee Cooperative. We will also get a perspective from Mike Moon of Just Coffee Cooperative.

But to start off with, we had the pleasure of talking with Gay Smith, of Organic Products Trading Company and the Café Femenino Foundation.

As Gay mentions during the show, a documentary film was made about the Café Femenino Foundation and its work. For more information and to view the trailer of "Strong Coffee: The Story of Café Femenino", please click here.

There were many groups with whom we wanted to speak for this episode, such as Level Ground Trading here in Victoria and Just Us Coffee Roasters Co-op in Wolfville, Nova Scotia. So, we’ll be revisiting the topic some time in the future.

If you’d like to hear another perspective on fair trade and coffee, please listen to the interview that EFA co-host Robin did with Bill Barrett of Planet Bean Coffee in Guelph Ontario, for our episode on worker co-ops.