FAIRTRADE

The Colombian Coffee Federation and Zotter Schokoladen Manufaktur are two fair trade business. Both intend to help producers or growers of poor countries. However, each one has its own plans and tries to reach its goal in its own ways. The Colombian Coffee Federation represents more than 500,000 Colombian coffee growers and is planning to enter the U.S. coffee market with the opening of a new coffee shop named Juan Valdez. Gabriel Silva, the president of the federation, said they need “to build their own solutions since coffee growers are facing a difficult market”. Indeed, there are too many countries like Vietnam and Brazil which leads to a coffee price decrease. As a consequence, coffee farmers have a lot of losses. In order to help them, industry trade groups have encouraged them to “destroy oversupply and raise prices”. The president of the Colombian Coffee Federation said that each farmer who belongs to the federation “will have an ownership stake in the shops”. The profits from this operation, will allow the federation to build access roads, schools, health centers and housing in poor Colombian regions. Josef Zotter, who created Zotter Schokoladen Manufaktur, aimed to build a little business buying fair trade chocolate beans from producers who are in Nicaragua and Brazil for the production of chocolate confectionery using local produce, for local consumption. He turned out bars with a wide range of flavors. Therefore, the factory has grown by word of mouth, and Mr Zotter can do without advertising. The business is based on ecological principles, for example they try to be independent with solar panels and with the use of water from local springs. Mr Zotter doesn’t want to keep expanding, and doesn’t work just for money, indeed, he wants his employees to feel good and he has established an organic canteen on the factory site to meet this goal. He doesn’t want to sell his products through large food retailing, so we can say it’s a return to