Fair Trade Coffee Case Study

Mexican coffee farmers have had an enormous amount of trouble selling their coffee beans at a price that would generate sustainable profit. Nico Roozen and Frans van der Hoff had a vision to implement a fair trade business that would increase not only profits of the farmers but their overall lifestyles. Nico and Frans both face the problem of distribution because fairly traded coffee was distributed only through the so-called Third World Shops that didn’t generate enough demand to create a stable supply chain. The possible alternatives to this problem would be for them to create their own brand of coffee, advertise the rise of fair trade coffee and its great quality, or create a hallmark with Solidaridad. The first alternative would be for the Mexican farmers to create their own brand. The first advantage is the company could start sending its product in their own package to ensure quality, and send it to just the homeland of Holland. This would cause the revenue to climb dramatically. The company could determine a price that was competitive with the other brands that were currently sold and let the quality of their coffee speak for itself. The second advantage is once the Mexican coffee gained a following in Holland, the company could extend the distribution to the other countries in their region that consume the highest per capita of coffee world wide: Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The third advantage is the advertisement of the new company could be aided by the Solidaridads’ foothold in the churches. If churches indorsed the coffee from Mexico, its parishioners’ may follow the trend and start purchasing Mexico’s coffee. Once the coffee had a strong consumer base, it could be sold in supermarkets where the mainstream consumer could purchase it. While the vision of Mexican farmers to have their own separate company to sell their product seems like an easy solution, it is far from that. The first disadvantage is Solidaridad would have to set up a whole