Good conversation is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.
Archive for July, 2009
Fair Trade Organic Coffee Fund Raiser –
Organic coffee fund raisers market well in any economy. Fundraise with coffees that are certified organic, fair trade, shade grown, bird friendly and also assist those in need in other parts of the world, and you will meet your fund raising goals.
The benefit to fundraising certified organic coffee is not restricted to the customer, but to the farming community itself, and the environment. Most coffees are grown in fertilizers and sprayed with herbicides, pesticides, and other chemical residues. By fund raising with certified organic coffee not only can the customer know they are drinking a healthful cup of coffee, they become aware that the organic coffee farmers and their families are not exposed to harmful chemicals. This snowball effect causes healthier water supplies and soils for the wildlife which in turn protects the people living in the organic coffee farming communities.
By distributing fair trade organic coffee through a fundraiser, you can create a positive impact for many generations to come. Through fairly traded standards the organic coffee farmers are paid a premium, greater than market price for their products to help them move from a position of poverty to become secure and sustainable. It also contributes to the quality of life for the organic coffee growers, their families, and ultimately their region.
When you fund raise with organic coffee, you know that shade grown coffee plants are important. Because of the tree coverage, shade grown coffee ripens slower, preserving more nutrients and creating a more complex and organic flavour in each cup than non-shade grown coffees. Shade grown organic coffee helps to protect the natural ecosystem, preserve nature’s diversity through conservation and restoration, assist migratory birds as well as other wildlife’s habitat, and reduce erosion by capturing run off water.
An organic coffee company that will personally help with school, church and sports fundraising is one that is essential to consider when choosing a coffee fund raiser.
Fund Raise For Your School, Organization, Church with Organic Coffee, Organic Tea and Cocoa Camino Hot Chocolate
1. You can be proud to ask your fund raising supporters to buy bird-friendly, shade grown, quality organic coffee as well as organic tea and cocoa camino hot chocolate products for your fundraiser!
2. Parents that buy a fair trade, organic product to support your fund raiser are more likely to have one more conversation with their child about the environment than they would have otherwise had that day!
3. Educators can integrate lessons about fund raising for the environment and being bird-friendly, shade grown and organic into the classroom instruction that will tie in nicely with your fundraiser.
4. Did your Mom ever say, “Do as I do, not as a say?” Your fund raisers will be leading by example so children will remember your fundraising for its sustainable organic coffee, tea and cocoa camino hot chocolate helping to save the environment for generations to come.
5. Bird-friendly, organic, shade grown coffee, tea and cocoa camino hot chocolate fund raising is a great way to support sustaining the Earth’s resources for our children and our grandchildren.
6. Fund raisers can offer their consumers Fair Trade, organic, shade grown and bird friendly coffee, tea and cocoa camino hot chocolate knowing they are helping poorer farmers and their families. This is because production is carried out using sustainable farming practices, specifically not allowing deforestation or chemical spraying to occur as part of plantation farming techniques. This protects both the land and the workers.
School Fundraising and Fair Trade
What makes some products different from those used in a traditional fund raising program? Try organic, fair-trade or fairly traded. What does Fair-Trade mean? Fair Trade is a market-based example of international trade that benefits over one million farmers and farm workers in 58 developing countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Fair Trade enables your fund raisers to advise their consumers to buy organic for a better world with their dollars.
Fair Trade Certified products include organic coffee, organic tea, and organic Cocoa Camino hot chocolate. Fundraising with Fair Trade assists farmers and farm workers to improve themselves with new business skills that allow them to compete globally. By guaranteeing minimum prices and premiums, Fairly Traded organic coffee, tea and hot chocolate leads farmers to invest in their farms and communities and protect the environment.
Your fundraising information should make your fund raiser groups aware of the Fair Trade principles:
Fair prices: Organized organic farmer groups receive a guaranteed minimum price and an additional premium for certified organic products. Farmer organizations are also eligible for pre-harvest credit. Fund raising will advocate fair trade organic beverages and let other groups know about the benefits of using Fairly Traded organic coffee, tea and cocoa products in their sales.
Fair labour conditions: Workers on Fairly Traded farms enjoy safe working conditions and decent living wages. Forced child labour is strictly prohibited. Fund raisers will be letting everyone know that their sales are promoting the cause of organic coffee, tea and cocoa farmers and their families.
Direct trade: Importers purchase from Fair Trade producer groups as directly as possible, eliminating middlemen and allowing organic coffee, tea and cocoa farmers to strengthen their organizations and become competitive globally. Fundraisers will please their customers when they know they are directly contributing to the organic farmers.
Democratic organizations: Fair Trade organic coffee, tea and chocolate farmers and farm workers decide how to use their Fair Trade premiums. Fund raising also uses democracy to decide which products they will promote, and Fairly Traded organic coffee, tea and cocoa are the most popular.
Community development: Fairly Traded organic coffee, tea and cocoa farmers and farm workers use Fair Trade premiums socially for health care, new schools, quality training, and organic coffee, tea and cocoa certification. Fundraising goals make everyone aware of the source of their beverages, making sure it is organic, Fair Trade and bird-friendly.
Coffee Joe says:
Coffee comes in five descending stages: Coffee, Java, Jamoke, Joe, and Carbon Remover.
Sustainable Organic Coffee in Nicaragua
Nicaragua’s development of organic coffee was started at the end of the eighties. According to a survey, 16.91% of the country’s coffee farms are currently run as organic. If this is correct, there are about 5,000 organic coffee farms in the country. Small and medium farmers are the main supporters of organic coffee, deciding on a sustainable product mostly due to more family labor and little money for chemicals.
Previously, organic coffee had to be grown as “natural” because many farmers had problems finding and paying for chemicals. Several cooperatives quit using them to reduce costs due to higher prices and a fear of fumes. Another group became a cooperative, stopped adding chemicals and was awarded land. The lack of available credit dictated by the Central Bank to reduce inflation was also a factor in their decision to go “organic”.
One of the most successful organic coffee areas is in San Juan de Río Coco. Many coffee growers had left their farms during the war, returning to find their plantations completely overgrown. Getting credit under the new banking system has also added to their difficulties, causing many of them to be forced onto the path of organic coffee growing. However, they soon realized the advantage of organic coffee in the international markets.
Growers soon became experts in the use of crop rotation, organic composting, seed selection, and setting aside areas for coffee to be shade grown, in addition to their method of patio drying. Since the mid-nineties, Nicaragua has been one of the main organic coffee exporters, accounting for 6.8% of world production.
Organic coffee farmers seek new markets offering healthy and earth-friendly products (organic), ethical products (fair trade) and high quality products (sustainable). The problem is not reducing costs through mass production, but by specialty organic coffees adapted to the consumer’s taste. For example, three cooperatives joined to subcontract a local company to roast, grind and package their organic shade grown coffee—then market it through a farmer-owned distribution.
Some other Nicaraguan organic coffee growers are already exploring other options. Since the year 2000, the quality of organic coffee has been judged at the annual “Cup of Excellence”. The coffees in Nicaragua are known for a sweet flavor and rich aroma. The contest helps to identify the best coffee produced in the country, making these available to top specialty roasters worldwide. The best quality organic coffee beans selected as the top ten winners are auctioned to the highest bidder at high premiums.
Buyers from the United States, Europe and Japan bid on the top coffees. Hopefully, this increased interest of the developed countries will aid future markets, and the recent introduction of Fair Trade will only improve the situation.
Organic Coffee Fairly Traded Merchandizing
Fair Pricing:
A main goal is to keep the organic coffee inventory moving, taking the time to adjust your pricing, and not affect your margins greatly. Some customers cannot afford the high prices for lattes, flavored, double cream, and just want a good, simple, organic coffee.
Busy Store:
The aroma of fresh from the roaster organic coffee, interesting displays, warm colors, clean décor, all attract customers. When they come for their organic coffee beans, they will buy drinks too. Common knowledge, if there are other people milling around, excited and happy, then they will enter the store too.
Complimentary Hard Goods:
This includes recyclable cups, equipment and accessories. Regardless of sales, they add a reflection of your overall plan, the aura of the store. Fair Trade, fairly traded, bird friendly, shade grown logos remind the customers of your store when they drink organic coffee, organic tea or organic hot chocolate. You want them to remember and become a repeat customer.
Focus on Great Product:
Nothing but fresh from the roaster quality, great aromas, and socially responsible organic coffee, tea or hot chocolate is acceptable. Today, consumers are more aware of the poor farmers who harvest the organic coffee beans, are more health conscious, reading labels, converting ingredients, and have pushed up the demand for organic coffee, tea and hot chocolate.
Friendly, knowledgeable staff:
They know the product history from organic coffee bean to cup. They willingly can explain simply and quickly the differences in organic coffee origins, how they are harvested, where, and more importantly, which one is the best for the individual buyer.
Eco Friendly School Fundraising: Coffee Waste
As your group gets involved in fund raising with organic coffee, and your consumers are made aware of the poor conditions the organic coffee farmers and their families work under, do you ever wonder what happens to the sludge and pulp after the coffee is processed.
Until recently, it lay in piles on agricultural land or was dumped into the water systems. When you promote buying organic coffee, fund raise with a conscience, your fund raising dollars contribute to new methods that are being developed to use this waste in the production of beverages, animal feed, compost and protein.
Seemingly, coffee waste can be used as a new source for adding to the eating habits of some farm animals. Less costly and better for the environment, it can replace up to 20% in dairy cattle, 15% in pigs, and all without harmful effects. Due to most coffee harvests happening during the dry season, it could possibly be an idea to use coffee waste instead when there is a shortage of cut grass for the cattle.
However, coffee waste is perishable and available for only half of the year, so must be prepared and preserved carefully. Silos, both the permanent structural kind and the pit type are being considered the answer. Pits are cheap, take up little space and have greater protection. Plastic sheeting covers the inside of the pit, keeping the matter from the soil, a drain is installed in the bottom, and a top sheet of plastic gives protection from the elements.
Permanent silos are more expensive, but keep the pulp airtight preventing decay, retaining nutrients longer and are easily accessed for use immediately after opening.
Besides keeping the environment safe for coffee farming, fund raisers can assure their customers that their decision to buy organic will also insure sustainable coffee harvests for the future.
School Fundraising with Fair Trade Organic Coffee
Coffee has become a popular product for fundraisers, especially organic coffee – it’s taken over. Coffee has been around since the earliest centuries, first served in coffeehouses for the scholars of the time.
Legend has it that back in 850AD, a goat herder noticed his herd was full of energy and eating berries previously unnoticed. The herder decided to give it a try. The berries also gave him energy. Thus began the journey for what is now known as coffee!
Or, it is also said that an Arabian man and his followers were banished to the desert to die of starvation. Desperate for nourishment, they were boiling and eating beans of an unknown tree. The broth produced saved the lives of the men! In the nearest town, Mocha, it became a renowned story. The drink was then named Mocha.
No matter which story you believe: the coffee berries (actually, the seed of the berry) gave energy and zest to all. Coffee was thought of as a delicacy and any recipes were a closely guarded secret!
Time passed, the very first coffee trees were harvested around 1100, in the Arabian Peninsula. In the year 1453, a law in Turkey that said that a woman could divorce her husband if he didn’t supply her with a daily supply of coffee!
The first known coffee shop was established in Constantinople around the year of 1475.
Since then, coffee has pretty much taken over the world! Between 1600-1700, began the world’s first coffee house and commercial production (made by the Dutch). By the middle 1700’s, already there were about 2000 coffee shops in Venice.
The first example for an espresso machine (made in Italy) was made in the 1800’s. In the 1900’s, the first drip coffee makers were invented. Suddenly, the coffee making process became easier. Automatic espresso machines began their journey in the 1930’s. Near the end of the century, coffee became the most popular beverage in the world, and now, a few years or so later, organic coffee is the new watchword on everyone’s lips! A few of the many regions where coffee is harvested include Ethiopia, Brazil, Central and South America, Italy, Indonesia and Turkey. Consumers now have numerous choices. Consider these labels – Original, Fair Trade, Fairly Traded Farmers First, and Organic coffees, all competing for your fundraising loyalty.
Who would have thought that a lowly berry that was discovered by a herd of goats would turn out to be one of the most important ingredients in the world, and be the answer for your fundraisers to reach their goals?
Coffee Joe Says:
Be a coffee-drinking individual – espresso yourself!
