My gripes with Wal-Mart aside, if they do expand their use Fair Trade coffee, it will bring the Fair Trade movement to the forefront, which is very much a good thing.
But make no bones about it, this isn’t as much about paying a fair price to farmers as it is about, well, undercutting the prices of their current supplier of coffee, Millstone (owned by Proctor and Gamble):
Sam’s Club already was selling fair-trade coffee from Millstone Coffee but wanted to work directly with Bom Dia to create a new line that could undercut the prices of the big names, controlling a supply chain from the ground up.
Regardless of how they got there, they got there. So with this, along with their recent foray into organic foods, it certainly makes Wal-mart worth watching.
Now if they could address the other issues surrounding their practices, too numerous to mention here, I might actually shop there.
Aw…who am I kidding? I’m still not going to shop there.
