Project: ORIGIN is taking Fair Trade relationships to the next level by not only sustainably doing business with farmers, but by giving retail coffee sales proceeds back to the farming communities that grew the coffee!
In Richmond, I'll be working in the beginning two weeks of September as a roasting apprentice for Blanchard's Coffee Company. I can really get behind this company because they're a fresh startup that's not interested in taking over the world with their coffee on every streetcorner - it's just a couple of guys that are nuts about fresh, quality coffee and want to get it out the door to people that might appreciate it.
That having been said, one of the guys at Blanchard's is taking his dedication to the craft to the next level with Project: ORIGIN. ORIGIN is a new way of thinking about fair-trade, sustainable coffee acquisition. Let's go to the history books!
So, historically, coffee farmers have worked for very, very, very cheap. Harvesting and preparing green coffee for shipment and roasting is often backbreaking, thankless work (not that I've done it, but I've heard all about it)! Before modern initiatives in the "Fair Trade" concept, coffee could come to United States soil as cheaply as a few cents per pound!
Granted, you pay more for quality, so that kind of coffee is usually what's NOT on tap at your local independent haunt. But, nonetheless, there is no sustainable means of quality coffee production at such low fares. In an effort to a) encourage farmers to produce more quality crops and b) give farmers a way to earn an honest, comfortable, non-third-world living, the Fair Trade movement in its current incarnation started.
The "Fair Trade Certified" logo and phrase is a trademark of a company called TransFair, and TransFair charges for the use of "Fair Trade Certified" branding. Also, TransFair's certification process has historically been less of a genuine Fair Trade assurance and more of a price lockdown on green beans, and so many roasters started taking the Fair Trade concept to the next level and initiating their own relationships with farmers, setting price deals that worked for both parties, and staying in constant communication about each others' needs.
While there's no ubiquitous window under which all these practices can be equally and nominally certified, it's a great idea! It's genuine and sustainable, and hence that's what Project: ORIGIN is about!
From ORIGIN's website: "Project: ORIGIN wants to bring you, a coffee drinker, closer to the people who grow your coffee. The farming process is a long one, sometimes with very little reward for the farmers. Though the fair-trade movement started to make a change, this project strives to make you aware of how much love goes into your brew. By buying coffee from the farm, selling the coffee retail, and giving the proceeds back to organizations that can help benefit the farmers, we try to give back as much as we can to improve the quality of life for the farmers who wake us up every day."
ORIGIN's maiden voyage begins shortly, and they're seeking support (financial or otherwise) to get this project rolling.