June 12, 2001

Orin Smith, CEO

Starbucks

PO Box 34067

Seattle, Washington 98124-1067

Dear Orin Smith,

It has been almost four months since you received a letter from the Organic Consumers Association and some of our closest allies in the public interest community (Friends of the Earth, Center for Food Safety, Pesticide Action Network, Sustain, and Rights Action). Since that time other public interest groups have written you similar letters -- Sierra Club, Sierra Club of Canada, Global Exchange, Action Aid (UK), and Genetic Food Alert (UK).  In our February 14, 2001 letter we asked you to make changes in Starbucks' company policies, specifically:

(1) Make a public statement that you intend to remove recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) and other genetically engineered food ingredients from all of your food and beverage products, and pledge that you will never use genetically engineered coffee beans. (2) Start brewing, highlighting, and promoting Fair Trade coffee in all of your cafes.  (3) Provide clear and transparent evidence that you are in compliance with your previous promise to improve the wages, working conditions, and lives of the people who grow, harvest, and process the coffee you buy in Guatemala and other nations.

Your response in writing to us (Starbucks letter to the OCA and other groups dated March 18, 2001) on the eve of our national protests on March 20, although cleverly written, was vague and equivocal. Because your response -- a full month after we wrote to you -- was unacceptable, we told you at the time there was no use in meeting with you in person.  As you know full well, however, we have continued to have communications with your Starbucks representative, Susan Mecklenburg, Director of Environmental and Community Affairs, since March 20 by telephone, fax, and email.

Regarding removing rBGH and genetically engineered ingredients from all of your products you said:

"We have concluded that the products offered in our stores are safe either because they have been approved by government agencies or conform to governmental regulators. Because Starbucks does not produce these goods and does not have control over their supply, we are not in a position to give immediate assurances that we can offer only GMO-free goods."

Of course, we are not demanding "immediate assurances" that Starbucks' products are free of genetically engineered ingredients. Starbucks at the present time buys 32 million gallons of milk every year in the USA [most of which is tainted with Monsanto¹s controversial rBGH]. Starbucks presently sells millions of chocolate bars and baked goods every year in the USA tainted with genetically engineered soy, soy derivatives, corn sweeteners, and cooking oils. What we were asking you February 14, and what we continue to ask, is that Starbucks simply make a public statement that you intend to remove, as soon as possible, recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH) and all genetically engineered ingredients from all the food and beverage products. Other major companies in the USA have already made this pledge (Gerbers, Heinz baby food division, Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and the entire $10 billion a year organic food industry). Until you are willing to make such a pledge to us and to your customers, we can only conclude that you are not willing to negotiate in good faith.

Regarding genetically engineered coffee beans:

Starbucks keeps saying that the company is not now using GE coffee beans. This is a clever, but dishonest response. Starbucks knows full well that no company in the world is currently selling genetically engineered coffee beans -- it would be illegal to do so since they have not been approved in any nation for commercialization. What we want Starbucks to say to us and to your customers is that the company will never buy or sell genetically engineered coffee beans, period. Until you are willing to make such a pledge to us and to your customers, we can only conclude that you are not willing to negotiate in good faith.

Regarding brewing and seriously promoting certified Fair Trade coffee, you wrote to us March 18:

"You applaud our decision to sell Fair Trade Coffee in our stores, but insist that we do more. Starbucks has made an enormous commitment to the goal of improving the lives of farmers and their families in the countries where we do business. Our decision to work with TransFair USA, the certifying agency for Fair Trade products in the U.S., to sell Fair Trade Coffee in all our company-owned stores, is one way we have chosen to meet that commitment."

Of course, Starbucks up until now has never brewed Fair Trade coffee as its "coffee of the day" except on two occasions (March 20, when we mobilized protesters outside your cafes in 100 cities in the US and Canada, and again on May 18, 2001). Consequently, you have bought very little Fair Trade coffee. Your so-called "enormous commitment" to helping small farmers get a fair price for their coffee by buying Fair Trade coffee, as you yourself candidly admitted on National Public Radio April 28, 2001, amounts to a grand total of one tenth of one percent of your company's total coffee purchases. From our standpoint, and, we believe, from the standpoint of most of your customers, one tenth of one percent of your coffee purchases does not constitute an honest good faith effort to sell and promote Fair Trade coffee. Furthermore, your excuse that you can't brew Fair Trade coffee beans on a regular basis as your coffee of the day, because there isn't a big enough supply, is not true. As TransFair USA (whom you claim to be working with) points out, there is available right now a massive amount (135 million pounds) of high quality Fair Trade coffee beans sitting in warehouses ready for Starbucks to purchase. What we want Starbucks to say to us and to your customers is that the company will start buying significant quantities of Fair Trade coffee and brew Fair Trade coffee as its coffee of the day at least one day a week in your 2400 USA cafes. Until you are willing to make such a pledge to us and to your customers, we can only conclude that you are not willing to negotiate in good faith.

Regarding your commitment to apply your Starbucks Company Code of Conduct to your coffee suppliers in Guatemala and other nations:

Since 1995, you have promised to raise the wages and improve the working conditions of coffee workers who now supply 99.9% of your coffee ­ for example in Guatemala where the average plantation worker makes $2.50 a day and child labor is common. And yet you were quoted in the Chicago Tribune April 22, 2001 as saying that your coffee supplier in Guatemala will not even tell you the location of the plantations and the farms that supply them with the coffee beans that Starbucks buys from that country. Can you imagine Nike or some other company, facing criticisms for using sweatshop contractors, telling the media and the public that they would like to apply Nike's Company Code of Conduct to their suppliers, and make sure their products are not being produced under sweatshop conditions, but that they can't do this because they don't know where their factories are located? What we want Starbucks to say to us and to your customers is that the company reaffirms its prior commitment to apply its Company Code of Conduct to all its suppliers, with the aim of improving the wages and working conditions of all of the farmers and plantation workers who supply its coffee beans. Part of this reaffirmation will be for Starbucks to state that it is unacceptable for its wholesalers to refuse to divulge the location of the coffee plantation and coffee farm suppliers who are supplying you with your coffee. Until you are willing to make such a pledge to us and to your customers, we can only conclude that you are not willing to negotiate in good faith.

Regarding Starbucks' recent announcement of its new Mexico Shade Grown bulk coffee beans:

We are happy to see Starbucks start to sell a small amount of certified organic coffee beans from Mexico in your cafes in bulk bean form and to offer it to colleges and other institutional food buyers. But as you are well aware, most Fair Trade coffee is already shade grown and/or certified organic. If selling Fair Trade shade grown coffee in bulk bean form since October 2000 has only resulted in sales that equal one tenth of one percent of your total sales, what kind of volume should we expect to see with your new Mexican certified organic beans? Will this be a larger volume than the token volume of Fair Trade beans you have been selling? Even if you can sell 10 times as many bags of Mexican organic coffee as you have of Fair Trade coffee -- which is extremely unlikely ­ this would amount to a mere one percent of your total sales. When I visited Mexico recently, I was told by coffee experts that Starbucks had purchased only four containers of certified organic coffee from Chiapas, hardly a major commitment to environmental sustainability or economic justice. The ethical and environmental bottom line is that Starbucks must start to purchase significant amounts of Fair Trade and shade grown coffee so as to brew this coffee at least one day a week as your coffee of the dayand/or to brew it in your espresso drinks. Otherwise you are guilty of tokenism and greenwashing. And any so-called environmental groups, such as Conservation International (recipients of grants from Starbucks totaling $650,000 for your Mexico organic project) that help you carry out such greenwashing, are guilty as well.

Finally, we wish to point out that it is Starbucks that has been blocking face-to-face negotiations, not us. We have made it clear since February 14 that we are ready to meet with Starbucks, as soon as you show us you are acting in good faith. Since you continue rather disingenuously to tell consumers we are unwilling to meet with you, we would like to set the record straight. We are ready to meet with you right now. Even if you cannot give us in writing your pledge that Starbucks has agreed in principle to remove genetically engineered ingredients from your coffee beverages and foods and that you will never use genetically engineered coffee beans; even if you cannot promise to brew Fair Trade coffee at least once a week as your coffee of the day, and even if you cannot reaffirm and follow through with your previous commitments to raise the wages and improve the working conditions of the coffee farmers and plantation workers who supply 99.9% of your coffee -- we are ready to meet with you anyway.

We look forward to hearing from you. You can call me at any time in my office (218) 226-4164. I repeat, I am ready to come to Seattle and meet with you. In the meantime our national, and now international, pressure campaign against Starbucks will continue. On March 20, we leafleted your customers in 100 cities across the US and Canada. On June 25-29, we will leaflet your customers in 200 cities across the US, as well as in Canada, UK, Australia, Japan, and other nations. Isn't it time for Starbucks to do the right thing?

Sincerely,

Ronnie Cummins,
Organic Consumers Association