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Starbucks, the Seattle based coffee behemoth, has this week announced that it is embracing cause of poor farmers across the world and will be sourcing all of its espresso coffee for the UK market through fair trade certified sources. There are two caveats, however; firstly this is not a universal conversion to fair trade – Starbucks’ new commitment is to sell 100% fair trade espresso coffee which, although used in the majority of Starbucks products sold, is not the only type of coffee the company sells; secondly the conversion will happen by the end of 2009 – approximately 13 months away. It is good to see that Starbucks views fair trade purchasing as important to the future of its business, and this commitment will see the company become the biggest buyer of fair trade coffee in the world. Given the current focus on the financial crisis, many people may rightly ask why Starbucks has made this move now. The answer, according to some commentators at least, is because of competitive pressures on ethics in Starbucks’ supply chain, which is leading to pressure on the company’s bottom line. One report claims that Starbucks has lost more ethical customers than rival coffee shops, while another report notes that Costa Coffee – one of Starbucks’ biggest rivals in the UK has promised to source all of its beans from farms approved by the Rainforest Alliance.

The announcement by Starbucks helps to reinforce the message that demand for ethical and fair trade products is not going away. In a recent YouGov poll commissioned by the Social Enterprise Coalition, 71% of consumers thought that the social and environmental values of business were equally or more important than they were prior to the beginning of the current financial and economic turmoil.