In June 2005, Coffex launched Global Cafe Direct into the Australian market cosmos, and since then its smooth blends have been stellar performers on the shelves and in kitchens and cafes across Oz.

So, whats the fuss?? Well, not only do our balanced blends produce the smoothest and most flavoursome coffees in the cosmos, but this is one of the most ethical coffees available in the Australian market, being both Fairtrade and Certified Organic. 

 

To give you a bit of a background -- the Fairtrade Certification represents an ethical movement using an alternative economic system, which guarantees Third World producers a fair price for their coffee, and therefore helps to reduce global poverty -- and by golly, are we glad to be a part of that! We believe our Global Café Direct products have been so commercially successful in this emerging market because they are of the same top-notch quality as our existing lines, as well as being ethically sound. 

The decision to introduce Fairtrade coffee into our product portfolio was made after observing the startling growth in the UK Fair trade market over the past ten years; this convinced us that the Australian consumer would soon demand an ethically produced coffee, especially if it was produced to our usual high standards. We think its a beauty of a coffee, and from what we hear, so do you!!

We work with some great Fairtrade cooperatives overseas, and this is just a example of two:

 

Cooperative Café Timor (CCT) is a cooperative organisation of the organic coffee farmers of East Timor. CCT was founded in early 2000 with business registration processes completed by December 18 2000. There are currently some 19,000-farmer members. East Timorese farmers founded CCT to fill the void in cooperatives left after gaining independence from Indonesia in late 1999. The farmers established CCT to market, process, transport and export Timorese farmers annual coffee crop, with the additional fairtrade goals of paying the highest prices for cooperative members coffee, as well as providing health programs, shade trees and a rudimentary farm advisory service.
The Clinic Café Timor initiative, a development program within CCT funded by USAID and by CCT profits gained largely from fairtrade premiums, demonstrates the benefits to disadvantaged communities from fairtrade practices. Clinic Café Timor offers primary level health services to the coffee farmers and their families in the remote mountain coffee growing districts of East Timor. The program currently reaches 115,000 in rural and coastal Timor. Historically, these families have been poorly serviced or isolated from mainstream health services.

“With the Fairtrade premium, the co-op has invested in a health care program that handles more than 16,000 cases each month. Its facilities include 10 fixed clinics and 24 mobile clinics that provide free services to coffee farmers and their families.”

- Sam Filiaci advisor to CCT, East Timor

MORE ABOUT FAIR TRADE & CCT IN EAST TIMOR:

East Timor coffee production is small in the global coffee context, producing less than one percent of the international total. Nevertheless, coffee is crucial to the country’s overall economy. It is the most important source of foreign exchange for East Timor and it serves as the primary source of income for about one-fourth of the country’s population, or some 44000 families.

After the 1999 referendum for independence, the Indonesian army and its militias devastated East Timor’s coffee industry by killing and displacing farmers and their families, stealing and destroying most of the coffee crop, and destroying roads, warehouses, and other infrastructure vital to the industry.

But with support since 1994 from the US National Cooperative Business Association, some 19,000 small-scale coffee farmers have organized in 16 organic cooperatives and 493 producer groups to create a national cooperative structure known as the Cooperativa Café Timor. Since the 1999 referendum, the NCBA project has worked quickly and under difficult conditions, in order to help East Timor farmers export their crop.

Positive results from these collective efforts are already being seen in the countryside. Café Timor is the only independent producer of wet-milled coffee, which significantly increases its quality and market value.

NCBA funds and coffee premiums have also helped Café Timor set up a network of eight fully operational clinics and 24 mobile clinics, making them the largest provider of rural health care in the country!

Still, a long road lies ahead to rebuild East Timor, ranging from basic needs for education and training to the repair of physical infrastructure and the implementation of “farmer friendly” government policies. But for now, expanding East Timor’s access to the Fair Trade coffee market is considered the best alternative.

                              -- www.newint.com.au/shop/cooperativa-cafe-timor

CSECANOR, or Central Servicios Cafeteleros del Nor Oriente, is located in Peru and services over 2000 members.  The organisation was established to provide more direct participation in the world market and to achieve better prices for their coffee with the result being improved living standards for its members.
The cooperative accords women a very positive position in the organisation with twenty percent of membership being women.  Furthermore women have been delegated leading on Peru's coffee boards.

Fairtrade profits have ensured that in each of the communities of the cooperative, there is a permanent medical post and a fully equipped first aid kit.  This ensures that medical emergencies are dealt with  quickly and safely.

Significantly, CSECANOR has dedicated a considerable amount of time to rebuilding and improving the roads in the regions, as they are not in good condition.  Many tens of kilometers of roads have been developed to assist communities to keep in contact with one another and to offer producers easier  transport routes to move their coffee to processing plants.

 

 (GLOBAL CAFE DIRECT FLO ID: #3344)