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Montreal Gazette
Here is an article from the Montreal gazette, as part of their "On the Coffee Trail: from Nicaragua to your Cup" series, discussing the place of fair trade in Montreal, focusing of course on our Montreal-based roaster member, Cafe Rico.
Montreal's Cafe Rico was the first fair trade coffee shop in Quebec
Montreal embraces fair trade coffee
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Kate Lunau, The Gazette
Sitting in Cafe Rico in the Plateau Mont Royal on a recent weekday afternoon, I couldn’t help but notice how busy the place was. Customers were browsing among shelves packed with everything from organic honey to specialty teas; others were sipping coffee, reading the paper, or engaged in animated conversation. Sevanne Kordahi, the cafe’s founder, manned the espresso machine, chatting with customers and staff as he expertly frothed milk. When Cafe Rico first opened in 1999, it was Quebec’s first fair trade coffee shop. And sitting there that afternoon, it was abundantly clear fair trade’s not just a fad anymore – it has taken over Montreal.
How did this happen?
“It was gradual,” Kordahi said when I asked him about the popularity of his cafe. Opening a fair trade coffee shop presented a number of challenges, he added, from convincing financers that fair trade products could be profitable, to educating consumers on the principles of fair trade, which aim to ensure that producers in developing countries are paid a fair wage. Fair trade in Montreal may have started in a handful of independent shops and cafes like Cafe Rico, but it wasn’t long before others jumped onboard. Today, you can buy fair trade products in more than 3,000 stores across Quebec – including some supermarket chains like Loblaws, Metro, and IGA – said Dario Iezzoni, the general manager of Equita, the fair trade branch of Oxfam-Quebec.
Sales of fair trade products across the country increased by an annual average of 55 per cent from 2001 to 2005, added Chantal Havard, public relations officer for Canadian certification body TransFair Canada. Fair trade is also “assuming a more and more important role in the city of Montreal,” said city spokesperson Natacha Beauchesne, as officials sip fair trade coffee in many city boroughs, from Verdun to the Plateau Mont Royal. In fact, the movement’s so popular that, in the words of Van Houtte Inc.’s marketing director Joseph Audi, “institutions are now mandating fair trade.” The Montreal-based coffee company serves only fair trade coffee in schools, offices and other institutions that ask for it, including the cafeterias of the business school HEC Montreal. Today, you can wear a fair trade T-shirt; throw a fair trade sports ball; even surprise someone with fair trade chocolate and flowers.
But coffee, the first certified product sold in Canada, is still the most heavily sold fair trade product, and remains an icon of the movement. “Coffee (is the crop that) touches the most people,” Kordahi said. It certainly touches us consumers in Canada – we drink about 14.5 billion cups of the stuff a year (so says the Coffee Association of Canada, a trade group). Although only about one per cent of it is fair trade, that number is going up every year.
But how does it touch the producers? It was over a cup of coffee at Cafe Rico that we decided to visit Nicaragua – with 19 fair trade-certified coffee producers within its borders, the Central American country is a major producer of fair trade coffee (and conventional coffee, too). It’s also one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere.
© The Gazette 2007
Sitting in Cafe Rico in the Plateau Mont Royal on a recent weekday afternoon, I couldn’t help but notice how busy the place was. Customers were browsing among shelves packed with everything from organic honey to specialty teas; others were sipping coffee, reading the paper, or engaged in animated conversation. Sevanne Kordahi, the cafe’s founder, manned the espresso machine, chatting with customers and staff as he expertly frothed milk. When Cafe Rico first opened in 1999, it was Quebec’s first fair trade coffee shop. And sitting there that afternoon, it was abundantly clear fair trade’s not just a fad anymore – it has taken over Montreal.
How did this happen?
“It was gradual,” Kordahi said when I asked him about the popularity of his cafe. Opening a fair trade coffee shop presented a number of challenges, he added, from convincing financers that fair trade products could be profitable, to educating consumers on the principles of fair trade, which aim to ensure that producers in developing countries are paid a fair wage. Fair trade in Montreal may have started in a handful of independent shops and cafes like Cafe Rico, but it wasn’t long before others jumped onboard. Today, you can buy fair trade products in more than 3,000 stores across Quebec – including some supermarket chains like Loblaws, Metro, and IGA – said Dario Iezzoni, the general manager of Equita, the fair trade branch of Oxfam-Quebec.
Sales of fair trade products across the country increased by an annual average of 55 per cent from 2001 to 2005, added Chantal Havard, public relations officer for Canadian certification body TransFair Canada. Fair trade is also “assuming a more and more important role in the city of Montreal,” said city spokesperson Natacha Beauchesne, as officials sip fair trade coffee in many city boroughs, from Verdun to the Plateau Mont Royal. In fact, the movement’s so popular that, in the words of Van Houtte Inc.’s marketing director Joseph Audi, “institutions are now mandating fair trade.” The Montreal-based coffee company serves only fair trade coffee in schools, offices and other institutions that ask for it, including the cafeterias of the business school HEC Montreal. Today, you can wear a fair trade T-shirt; throw a fair trade sports ball; even surprise someone with fair trade chocolate and flowers.
But coffee, the first certified product sold in Canada, is still the most heavily sold fair trade product, and remains an icon of the movement. “Coffee (is the crop that) touches the most people,” Kordahi said. It certainly touches us consumers in Canada – we drink about 14.5 billion cups of the stuff a year (so says the Coffee Association of Canada, a trade group). Although only about one per cent of it is fair trade, that number is going up every year.
But how does it touch the producers? It was over a cup of coffee at Cafe Rico that we decided to visit Nicaragua – with 19 fair trade-certified coffee producers within its borders, the Central American country is a major producer of fair trade coffee (and conventional coffee, too). It’s also one of the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere.
© The Gazette 2007
