Fair trade- Making the World a Better, Brighter, Safer Place: Just One Cup of Just Coffee at a Time

Hello and welcome to Faircoffee.com where it is possible to help make the world a better, brighter, and safer place if only one cup at a time. For far too long, corporate farming has produced the majority of the world's coffee production. These large, impersonal corporations pay laborers subsistence-level wages, use pesticides and other dangerous chemicals that can harm both humans and the environment.

Fair Trade Certified coffee is produced by independent growers who receive a fair wage for their product and most are also certified as 100% organic and shade-tree grown. This simple commitment to paying someone a fair wage for their labors helps build local communities, put children through school, and ultimately produces a higher quality, better-tasting coffee. When the farmer is paid a fair wage, they have the incentive to only harvest the best beans while leaving the unripe ones behind for a later harvest. Although this commitment to paying a fair wage for the farmer's labor may lower profits, Rachel and I firmly believe that its time businesses started taking responsibility and serving people instead of the other way around.

FairCoffee.com Core Values:

1. Delicious Coffee: Hey, we are coffee lovers just like you! At the end of the day, we had to have the best tasting coffee out there so we searched the globe for the highest quality, freshest beans out there - anywhere!

2. Pesticide-Free: I, like you, just want a cup of delicious coffee-not a bunch of chemicals, pesticides, or artificial flavors. Studies have conclusively shown all of these substances increase free radical production. Currently, most of our products are certified organic and we are currently taking steps to make this 100% of our product line in the near future.

3. Fair Trade: When farmers are paid a fair price for their product, they have the time necessary to ensure the finest product possible. This allows many farmers to identify and hand-pick only red-ripe coffee cherries while leaving the rest time to mature. Corporations, on the other hand, employ massive machines that pick every single bean, ripe or not, which ultimately lowers the quality of the roast and damages flavor.
   

The beans are then prepared by the cooperative and sold at a fair price to the roaster who now has some of the highest quality, pesticide-free coffee beans on the planet. The beans are then roasted to perfection before being shipped directly to our customers. From beginning to end, our fair trade policy ultimately ensures better quality, a cleaner environment, and hopefully a better world in the process.

Safer Product

At Faircoffee.com, almost all of our roasters are 100% organic and shade tree certified meaning no forest canopy was destroyed to grow the coffee beans. Why are these things so very important to us?

Because no matter where you turn these days, the effects of our toxic culture are becoming more evident by the day: Melting ice caps, smog alerts, "mad cow disease", avian flue, chemical spills, and an entire generation of children and young adults that literally have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. While the corporations turn their backs on the very serious health risks posed by their products, we as the consumer are left with few assurances when it comes to the safety of the foods and beverages we eat and drink.

Rachel and I are avid coffee lovers but like many of you, we started to really worry about the things we put into our bodies because a significant number of our friends began developing major medical conditions in their 40's and early 50's. Now we aren't medical doctors nor do we claim to be, but something very real was happening to an entire generation of people that didn't occur with our parents. From cancer to heart disease or stroke, there were just too many people getting sick years, even decades, before their time.

Again, we are not doctors but we did discover a very large difference between our generation and that of our parents: the food. At the end of World War II and for much of the 1940's and 1950's, all food was fresh with few exceptions. But with the highways, corporate farming, and the creation of "supermarkets", well, food manufacturers had add preservatives to keep the food from spoiling. Plus, large corporate farming led to increased use pesticides and other agents known to increase "free radicals" throughout your body.

Free radicals are produced by the body in order to help eliminate toxins and inactive ingredients from the body. Pesticides, additives, and preservatives are all known to increase free radicals in your body and potentially lead to a number of very serious medical problems, including:

• Increased risk of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke

• Gastrointestinal problems such as IBS, chronic constipation, and flatulence

• Poor Digestive Function

• Increased signs of aging such as wrinkles, dry skin

• Increased risk for certain kinds of cancer, including colon cancer

• Poor vision

Research shows that it can take years before free radical damage causes any of the serious problems listed above, but that's what worried us. The large corporations are polluting our environment and adding toxic pesticides and potentially harmful additives and preservatives to our products like coffee for one reason and one reason only: more profits.

To learn more about how free radicals are caused by toxins like pesticides or lead to serious medical problems like those listed above, click here.

Look, Rachel and I don't live on any commune and we like money just as much as any, but we don't want to die years, perhaps even decades before our time, just for some coffee. Nor do we want to be part of some corporation impeding on the rights of farmers and local peoples to live a decent life just so some greedy people at the top can make a few more cents per share. And this is why we created FairCoffee.com: Better Living, One Cup at a Time.

The Fair Trade Difference: Better Communities, Safer Environment, Higher Quality Coffee

By taking responsibility today for the products we consume, we are helping to guarantee a better tomorrow. Coffee should never cause children not to be educated, families to be displaced, or consumers or workers to be exposed to harmful pesticides and chemicals. And now whenever you make a purchase from FairCoffee.com, they don't have to!

No, we can't change the world overnight and it probably would be a waste of time hoping for the corporations to become responsible. But, by making sure to only support products and services created through fair trade practices (notice we did not say "free trade"!), we can make the world a better, brighter, and safer place: Just one cup of just coffee at a time!

Rachel and I thank you for visiting our site and encourage you to contact us if you have any questions about us, our product, or our company vision.

Thank you,

Stephen and Rachel Betzen