Everyone should have equal opportunities to add more values into a commodity value chains.
Each day, the world consumes 2 billions cups of coffee. This makes coffee become one of the largest commodities in term of people involvement. Since May 2007, International Coffee Organisation (ICO) has 77 members, 45 of them are exporting countries. The other 32 importing members are normally developed countries.
Coffee grows in the South, but the way to consume that spreads out by the North. Farmers of the exporting countries plant coffee and sell cherries to factories. Beans are put in 60kg bags to export. In 2011, exporting countries produced about 131 million bags (7.8mil tons) of coffee beans, which then go to some big coffee roasting houses, creating famous commercial brands of roast, instant coffee, and coffee pods… Those latter go though different distribution channels, such as super markets, online markets, coffee shops to consumers. The consumers may never know where the coffee originated and the coffee farmers would have fewer opportunities to add more values than just producing cherries.
Single origin coffee offers all people participated in the value chains have opportunities to add more value to the commodity through traceability and responsibility approach. Consumers could be able to trace back the origins of what they drink. Farmers are fairly being known in the markets, which empowers them to have more confidence to create their own product brands. Small roasters have more opportunities to tailor their own commercial brands. All above, life is a little bit better as more transparence and respectfulness are brought in.