McDonalds Coffee - Fair Trade

You caught the press release but unfortunately missed the real story here. A good number of people within Fair Trade see this as cynical marketing from a company historically known for their exploitive practices -- and they worry this drags down Fair Trade in the dirt.

Others, like myself, point out how this is just another crack in the crumbling façade of Fair Trade -- as it has been co-opted by the very corporations it was founded to defend against and suffered from the weight of its own growth.

I understand that side of it, but I don't see it that way. If one doesn't want someone like McDonald's in Fair Trade, they're destined to fail. It will be limited to a bunch of boutique brands that collectively sell as much coffee in a year that someone like Kraft sells in a day. Fair Trade works on the premise that markets will drive manufacturers to use Fair Trade to appeal to consumers and boost the sales of their brands. That's the bait.

I don't care so much if McDonald's has been known for their poor practices in the past; what I think is great is the fact that the capitalistic nature of the markets "pushed" McD's, with potentially a bad record, to turn things around. They took the bait and the farmers win. To apply a little Arlo Guthrie and Alice's Restaurant thinking here, if one big corporation does this you might think that they are sick, but if fifty corporations do it it's a movement. In my mind success is if McDonald's and Nestle and Maxwell House/Kraft and Folgers and everyone else all go Fair Trade.

The real winners are the farmers and that's why Fair Trade was founded. It's not a club for people who hoped to keep this small and exclusive. I'd like to see a day when a Fair Trade organization isn't needed because all farmers are dealt with at "Fair Trade" levels.