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Over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world every day.
Over 400 Million of them in the U.S. alone.
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Dream it.
Don’t worry about sounding professional. Sound like you. There are over 1.5 billion websites out there, but your story is what’s going to separate this one from the rest. If you read the words back and don’t hear your own voice in your head, that’s a good sign you still have more work to do.
Build it.
Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.
FACT
Coffee is not the world’s second-most traded commodity after oil.
The more we keep saying it is, the more we devalue the actual worth of the coffee industry – especially for the farmers who are effectively subsidizing it.
There is a very commonly held belief that coffee is the #2 traded commodity in the world – it’s published books, countless websites, academic theses, and interviews. Recently, Starbucks even repeated it to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
How can we expect people to believe the real and critical financial issues, if the industry continue to repeat claims that are inaccurate? Plus how do we get people to pay more for coffee, especially if we collectively perceive coffee to be the second largest traded commodity in the world?
At one time (maybe as late as the 1970’s), coffee represented the second-most valuable commodity exported by developing countries, but there’s no evidence that’s still the case.
Truth is that there are markets for several commodities including soybeans, wheat, aluminum, copper and iron ore are larger than the coffee market — in some cases, four times larger.
Keep in mind, how coffee is bought and sold is quite dynamic. Coffee is often bought on a futures market called the C-Market (KT:NMX). If you count all of the trades on that futures market, it’s possible that the number may far exceed the amount of other commodities, but there is a big different between a future trade and an actual exported commodity.
Fairtrade is the only global sustainability label that guarantees a minimum price for coffee. Fairtrade certified coffee cooperatives currently earn the Fairtrade Minimum Price of $1.40 per pound. Read more at Fair Trade America
How much do you consistently pay for a cup of coffee?
Imagine that four-person household as coffee farmers in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia, working on four hectares of land. Even with a decent annual yield of 1,500 kilos (approximately 3,307 lbs.) of coffee, the household produces at a loss at the current market price of less than a dollar per pound. The price would have to reach $1.40 per pound in order to lift the household above the poverty line, which itself is only just a little over a third of a living income.
Coffee is booming – but farmers are earning less than a dollar per pound for their beans.
Fairtrade is the only global sustainability label that guarantees a minimum price for coffee. Fairtrade certified coffee cooperatives currently earn the Fairtrade Minimum Price of $1.40 per pound – about 40 percent more than the current market price – or $1.70 per pound organic. On top of that, they earn $0.20 per pound in Fairtrade Premium, of which at least 25 percent is invested in productivity and quality initiatives. Co-ops invest the rest in projects of their choice, ranging from processing facilities to community healthcare. Fairtrade coffee producers earned more than $94 million in Premium in 2017.
Kettler, P. (2020, August 28). We love coffee. Are we willing to pay the price? Retrieved September 13, 2020, from https://www.fairtradeamerica.org/news-insights/we-love-coffee-are-we-willing-to-pay-the-price/