By IAN ROWE-NICHOLLS
Supermarket shelves teem with fair trade coffees, each parading their brand’s dedication to global economic justice.
They may boast different certifications or taglines, but fair trade products are aligned: They guarantee that coffee producers are paid a fair and reliable price, which often paves the way for other perks such as public works projects in far-flung impoverished farming communities around the globe. Though it’s true the reach of fair trade is on the rise, still only 41% of Americans are aware of the fair trade movement, a figure that reveals how much still can be accomplished.
This is where Jesuit institutions come in. Because they aim both to promote the common good and to satisfy a demand for caffeinated beverages, these institutions are fertile soil for expanding the reach of fair trade coffee, and the fair trade movement more broadly, by choosing to invest in it. Further, they are positioned to educate and inspire young leaders by highlighting fair trade in the curriculum and giving it enhanced visibility in their institutional retail settings.
Three programs highlight the ways students at Jesuit institutions are simultaneously reducing global inequalities while advancing education on fair trade.
The first, founded in 2015, is Seattle University’s student-run, socially conscious MotMot Coffee. In its business model, MotMot emphasizes increasing access to health care and education among its coffee suppliers, dedicating all profits back to them for those purposes. Their selection also emphasizes the “global” in global economic development, sourcing from both Nicaraguan and Vietnamese co-operatives. Sold across Seattle University’s campus, in neighboring locations, and online, MotMot is a fine example of the educational and economic benefits that fair trade coffee can offer.
SJ Brew, led by students at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, is a more recent addition to Jesuit higher education’s altruistic coffee brands. Founded by students who had embarked on a study tour to Nicaraguan coffee farms, the fair trade and organic certified brand launched both on campus and in the world of e-commerce in 2021. Its leaders take pride in their source, Café Femenino, a women-led co-operative dedicated to promoting gender equality in the coffee industry. And in addition to combating inequality abroad, SJ Brew relieves inequality within its own local community: the not-for-profit delivers its funds to a study tour scholarship fund for Pell Grant recipients at SJU. Here, then, is a quintessential example of the unique role a university can play: Not only are small farmers connected to an expanding market, but students also learn about what a just economy looks like, develop business acumen, and benefit from the profits.
Other U.S. Jesuit institutions have partnered with Capeltic (pronounced Cap-el-TEEK), an organization established 20 years ago when indigenous farmers teamed up with Jesuits in Chiapas, the poorest state in Mexico. Capeltic has subsequently become one of the most effective systems of its kind, one in which every stage of production—farming, roasting, and branding—is completed locally, ensuring that the profits stay local. Notably, according to Christina Rossini, Capeltic’s liaison in the United States, their coffee has sold in recent years for nearly three times the traditional market value.
Fr. Stephen Pitts, S.J., gives a tour of a coffee roasting facility in Chiapas, Mexico. Photo courtesy of the Ignatian Solidarity Network.
Capeltic may be an independent brand, but U.S. Jesuit institutions have found ways to make it an emblem of fair trade within their communities. Students at Marquette University and Creighton University, as part of marketing courses taught by Nicholas Santos, S.J., support Capeltic by sending the finished products of their research to the brand’s leadership team. At University of Detroit Mercy, students have sold Capeltic products as a means of fundraising for local causes. For students at the University of San Francisco, a longstanding Capeltic client, the brand’s popularity on campus has become a means of introducing a whole generation of students to the fair trade movement.
Together, these examples demonstrate how fair trade coffee can illuminate a path to the empowerment of poor and marginalized people and to a more sustainable future—even as it advances students’ education and satiates our unabated craving for caffeine.
It only makes sense for Jesuit institutions to provide unique and meaningful opportunities in the name of a socially conscious education that advances respect and dignity for all people, made as they are in the image and likeness of God. That’s what investing in fair trade coffee can do.
So why not grab your mug and join the movement!
Ian Rowe-Nicholls is a member of Saint Joseph’s University’s Class of 2024 and serves on SJ Brew’s student leadership team. In 2021, he researched the fair trade movement and activism on Jesuit campuses as part of SJU’s Summer Scholars Program.
The cover photo (above) is featured courtesy of Saint Joseph’s University.