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The Mac Weekly - April 13, 2007 Café Mac Considers Using Only Fair Trade Coffee By Frederico Burlon, Staff Writer The project came as a result of Bon Appetit's pursuit of increased sustainability as well as the student organization, Minnesota Public Interest Research Group's (MPIRG), campaign to promote fair trade and fair trade products at Macalester. "The idea would be to have Peace Coffee's products, which are much more expensive than other brands but of a higher quality. They are already being served at the Grille as a part of Bon Appetit's promotion of local institutions" Cassie Warren '08 said. Warren is a member of MPIRG's Fair trade task force who led the talks with Bon Appetit. Currently, some of the coffee at the cafeteria is fair trade, excluding the flavored and decaf coffee, and the switch would make the rest fair trade certified. "Peace Coffee is still a small though rapidly growing business," general manager for Bon Appetit at Macalester, Lori Hartzell said. Warren credited Hartzell for facilitating the fair trade initiative. Hartzell said that representatives of Peace Coffee have visited Macalester to estimate the cost of using their product for the entire cafeteria but the shift will not happen before Commencement. "The amount of coffee that Peace Coffee will have to provide us is great and the equipment for brewing is very expensive. We need to make sure that this is possible," Hartzell said. Also, according to Hartzell, having fair trade coffee will not increase the price of the meal plans. MPIRG's fair trade initiative began in October 2006 with tabling in the basement of the Campus Center, serving fair trade coffee and asking students to sign a petition to support the initiative. "We collected around 180 signatures. The petition helped MPIRG in realizing the strong student support for the initiative" Warren said. "This is the natural outcome of having a fair trade task force and it reflects the trend at many other colleges of switching to fair trade." Warren said. A survey MPIRG sent to several Minnesota campuses showed that the University of Minnesota's dining service also increased the number of fair trade products it offers this year. |
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