Essay: Three coffee companies that use fair trade coffee
As you click open the official website page of the Bridgehead coffee, a line of slogan will appear in your computer screen: Fairly traded, organic and shade-grown coffees from small-scale farmers.
Bridgehead source their coffee beans from more than 10 countries, most of the countries are developing countries which locate in Americas and Africa. Bridgehead promises that they will only cooperate with land owning small producers; this is because nowadays, there are competitions between big coffee producers and small-scale farmers. These competitions relate to many disadvantages towards the small producers. In order to solve this problem, Bridgehead decides that they will trade with small-scale farmers, only buy their coffee beans, and use fair trade to ensure the farmers can benefit from the trading. In Ottawa, the average price for one cup of coffee in Bridgehead is $8, and in China the price is 49 RMB.
Kicking Horse is a coffee company which originated in Canada, near Kicking Horse River. Their beans are sourced from Arabic and roasted in Canada, and they use 100% fair trade to give the coffee farmer a just trading price and ensure their wellbeing. The price for Kicking Horse coffee in China is ranged from 25 RMB to 74 RMB, the average price for the coffee is $12.99 in Canada.
Starbucks is another famous coffee that uses fair trade coffee. Starbucks source their coffee beans from Latin America and East Africa, Starbucks has established an interdependence relationship between the company itself and many small-scale farmers. Starbucks is one of the biggest purchasers of Fair Trade Certified coffee; it is willing to pay a fair payment for the farmers and make sure they have good living conditions. In China, the average price of one cup of normal sized (medium) coffee in Starbucks is at around 27 RMB. In Canada, the average price for normal sized coffee is at around $4.
All of the three coffee companies use Fair Trade Certified coffee, which benefits lots of farmers, ensures their wellbeing. Yet the price of their coffee for the consumers will be higher than other coffee companies who don’t use fair trade coffee. For they need to benefit the small-scale farms as well as benefit themselves, these coffee companies have to raise their prices for coffee in order to make profit.
Without fair trade, small-scaled farmers can’t be paid fairly. Thus most of them are not able to afford their children to go to school or receive any health care. What’s worse, they can’t even pay for the loan on their lands. With the using of fair trade, the small producers don’t need to suffer from these disadvantages any more; they can trade fairly with the company, and receive their payment fairly. After this research on coffee companies and fair trade, our group believes that people should promote the movement of fair trade. In this way, the small producers can receive more care from others and their wellbeing will be also ensured. On the other hand, because of using fair trade coffee, the coffee company can receive a better reputation.

Video Questions
1. We spend 3 dollars at Starbucks to purchase 1 cup of coffee. Among these 3 dollars, 3 cents will be given to the coffee