In my area, the greater San Francisco Bay Area, there are loads of coffee joints. We have the gazillion Starbucks splattered all around, hundreds of Peet’s Coffee, and “only sold at” grocery store’s Peace Coffee. All three claim ethical approaches to coffee production, the environment, and claim to adhere to labor laws. Which coffee company do we believe, which should we support?
—**—
Coffee Business Details
Coffee traces its origin to a genus of plants known as Coffea. Within Coffea there are 500+ genera and 6,000 species of tropical trees and shrubs. Some estimate there are between 25 to 100 species of coffee plants (1). But most of the coffee industry highlights two varieties.
- Coffea Arabica (which has seven varieties) is descended from the original coffee trees discovered in Ethiopia, and represent ~70% of global coffee production.
- Coffea canephora known as Robusta is grown in Central and Western Africa, parts of Southeast Asia, and Brazil, representing ~30% of coffee production
Biggest Global Coffee Companies
IbisWorld reports that there are 13,240 Coffee Production businesses in the US as of 2022, an increase of 1.8% from 2021. These are mom-n-pop as well as global businesses. Wikipedia states that Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Tim Hortons are the three largest coffee companies in the world. But I was curious about the top ten. Below are the companies that dominate coffee’s global retail and wholesale markets (6). I have listed their names, headquarter locations, and a note here and there.
- Starbucks (Seattle, WA): Founded in 1971, Starbucks is the largest coffee company in the world.
- Keurig Dr Pepper (Burlington, MA): this is a global beverage company, resulting from a merger in 2018 of Keurig Green Mountain and the Dr Pepper Snapple Group
- Nescafé (Vevey, Switzerland): See my post Is Nestlé a Good World Neighbor?, this company started in 1938
- McCafé (Oak Brook, Illinois): McDonald’s newish coffee is made with arabaca beans, but the company started in 1938
- JDE Peet’s Coffee and Tea (Amsterdam, Netherlands): Started in Berkeley, CA, but became a Dutch-American company in 2015 via a merger.
- Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (Frisco, TX): a JAB Holding Company that started in 1981
- Tim Hortons (Oakville, Canada): Founded in 1964
- Lavazza (Turin, Italy): This family run company started in 1895 and has been been integral in exporting Italy’s rich coffee culture around the entire world
- Dunkin’ Donuts (Canton, MA): Founded in 1950, and now competing against McDonald’s coffee
- Folgers (San Francisco, CA): An early pioneer, starting in 1850, this coffee has been an American staple for all these years
The Coffee I Choose to Drink
Starbucks Coffee
Founded in Seattle, Washington, in 1971.
In 2018, Starbucks reportedly sourced its coffee beans directly from ~30k coffee farms around the world, for example: Brazil, Columbia, Guatemala, Kenya, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Tanzania. It is also stated in numerous posts that Starbucks had become the largest coffee chain with >35k outlets in over 80 countries worldwide. Thus, it seems appropriate to start my coffee brand comments with Starbucks.
I hope I get this right for it is rather complex. Clear to me is that Starbucks started in March 1971, a homegrown business near Pikes Place Market in downtown Seattle. While I lived there, this outlet was my go to weekend morning coffee place, and I enjoyed nothing more than getting a Caffè latte while browsing through the outdoor market.
- Caffè latte is often shortened to just latte, made with espresso coffee and steamed milk
- Espresso is an Italian coffee-brewing method, not a type of coffee bean
Starbucks has changed since then, and is now part of a very large, international, conglomerate drink and snack company with numerous subsidiaries (7). It has also become a publicly traded company (8), that owns Seattle’s Best Coffee and Ethos Water since 2003 (9); merged with Teavana and acquired La Boulange in 2012 (10, 11); and then sold the Starbucks grocery and retail rights to Nestlé in 2018 (12). Heck, even the Costco coffee brand is really Starbucks (13). Their coffee is now nearly everywhere.
Starbucks started out as a company trying to be ethical, living up to liberal ideas of treating people right, paying farmers livable wages, protecting the environment, etc. It became known as a company based on its ethics and product. But, over time they grew in size, and the news stories started to imply a less than stellar ethical grade.
- It seems to some that Starbucks skipped the existing certification processes offered by independent organizations, and instead created its own, the CAFE Practice Standards, to “assure ethical sourcing” of its coffee. Is this “the fox guarding the hen house” situation or the real deal? I do not know.
- WaPo: Early 2024 the National Consumers League, a USA advocacy group, sued Starbucks for allegedly misleading customers with promises of ethically sourced products, despite procuring from farms and cooperatives that, the lawsuit says, have committed human rights and labor abuses.
- NYT: November 2023 it was reported that unionized Starbucks workers walked off the job on Thursday…just another report of a staff walkout in the ongoing battle between the company and organized labor. Reading Wikipedia’s post on Starbucks, seems to imply all sorts of anti-union activity by the company.
- In June 2019 FairWorldProject reported that Brazilian labor inspectors have found slave labor on plantations where Starbucks buys coffee. And not just any plantations, but ones that have been “certified” to Starbucks’ C.A.F.E. Practices standards. This marks the second time in nine months that this has happened.
- One ongoing issue that CleanWater notes, is that as the largest, Starbucks uses >8k paper cups per minute, or >4B cups a year, or 1.6M trees every year for all of those single-use cups. These cups are lined with plastic and not reliably recyclable (only 4 USA cities accept Starbucks paper cups for recycling).
- I do not have a date for this assessment, but there is a report that Starbucks food may contain GMO fed meat products, none of the industrial farmed meats appear certified organic or free range (14).
- Being the biggest coffee retail outlet, of course Starbucks has had its share of litigation. From the ridiculous, to real problems: read here and CBS/CNN.
Assessment: I buy Starbucks “venti latte with no fat milk and no foam” or “iced coffee with whole fat milk and regular ice” several times a year, especially when RVing. The reason is that in some of the areas we have been, Starbucks is the only coffee shop we see. They also have an app, so I can find the store in many of the areas we are traveling through, and their coffee can come in gigantic cup sizes, which I like. But, are they an ethical company? I do not know for sure, but they do put emphasis on ethics in their marketing materials. I have no reason not to buy drinks at their place, unless of course there is a labor dispute occurring.
Their coffee tastes milder to me than Peet’s, as it should since they do not specialize in the dark roast Peet’s flavor, and if I had a latte from each store in front of me I would probably choose Starbucks because of that. However, they are expensive and their business model relies on producing lots of waste, not just once used, throw-away cups. For instance, delivered pastries come in a brown food sack, while the pastry itself was individually wrapped in cellophane. The food was not locally baked, as far as I could tell, but was more like the soft, mushy, wrapped pastries that usually come from highly processed, industrial bakeries, and are at truck stops.
Peet’s Coffee
Peet’s was founded in 1966, in Berkeley, California. USAToday rated Peets’ the #1 Best Coffee Chain for 2023. That alone merits me writing about them next, plus I have had hundreds of their lattes from the original outlet on Vine street in Berkeley.
In the 1960s, Dutch immigrant Alfred Peet’s Berkeley corner cafe revolutionized coffee in America, and since that time legions of fans (even worldwide) have been introduced to a number of the company’s most popular blends, such as Major Dickason’s Blend®.
- SFStandard: The company has also had an incredible consistency, with only three roast masters in its entire 57-year history: Alfred Peet, James Reynolds and Doug Welsh.
- Alfred Peet reportedly trained the people who opened Starbucks personally. In fact, it has been written that when Starbucks first opened, they served Peet’s beans. But eventually, Peet’s continued its tradition of dark roasted beans, while Starbucks branched into milky coffee drinks.
Peet’s roasted 100% of their beans in the nations first LEED Gold Certified roastery (15). I believe not every source of their beans are certified, but you can choose Fair Trade, Organic, and Rain Forest Alliance certified coffee. For decaf, they use a water process to decaffeinate their coffee, rather than chemicals.
In 2020, Peet’s merged with Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) and the joint venture went public. Unfortunately, JDE scores poorly for ethics according to GreenStarsProject. However, since that merger, Pete’s announced that 100% of its coffee is responsibly sourced, per Enveritas, a coffee industry verification nonprofit.
Assessment: When local or regional companies are absorbed into larger multi-national conglomerates, their personality seems to die, as does the personal commitment of its owner to the health of our planet, its plants and animals, and us. The local Peet’s outlets feel the same when I go to the original store or my local one, but they are in the news. The stories are about low wages, corporate pushing for profits and volume, unionizing, etc.
Personally, I find their coffee a bit harsh and must have milk with it to help temper the acid, so my stomach stays happy. They roast a darker than typical Starbucks coffee, preferring a caramelization of the bean. But their lattes are more tasty, and their beans are, to me, more oily. I have to admit though, I like the less corporate look of Peet’s over Starbucks, the outlets I visit still have the small town vibe.
Peace Coffee
I received a box of Peace Coffee containing:
- 12oz bag of ground French Roast
- 12oz bag of whole bean Guatemala (single origin)
- 12 pods of Tree Hugger dark roast compostable ecopods
What was I to do? Of course, yes, I made and drank several cups, plus shared the coffee with my family and friends over the holidays. Everyone who had some, thought it tasted great (with or without milk, sugar, Irish cream, etc). But what I liked eapecially, was some of the details the company paid attention to, such as posting the “roast batch dates” and “best used by dates” on the back of the Peace Coffee containers.
- If the convention ####-# was printed as 2039-2
- 20 is the year (2020)
- 39 indicates that it was roasted on the 39th week of the year
- And the 2 is the second day of that week (the week starting on Monday)
- So, September 22nd, 2020
This company, is also a certified B Corporation, which I applaud, and since 1996 has been based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Evidently, Wikipedia writes that this coffee has a a strong presence in the Upper Midwest, but around my area in California, Peace Coffee is sold only in the Sprouts Farmers Markets, or on-line at PeaceCoffee. Online they clearly state that they only purchase 100% certified organic coffee beans from Fair Trade certified cooperatives, which is another couple of pluses in their favor.
Additionally, since some of my friends drink decaf, it is important to me that Starbucks, Peet’s,and Peace Coffee’s decaf coffee are water-processed. Peace Coffee further states it’s 100% chemical-free, and uses an organic-approved process that consistently removes 99.9% of the caffeine.
I also learned something. Peace Coffee mentioned that some of their coffee growers are certified Bird Friendly® Farms. I had not heard of this, and found out that coffee importers, roasters and retailers can sign legal agreements with the Smithsonian, verifying that they separately handle, package and label Bird Friendly beans, guaranteeing 100% product purity, traceability, and reporting of their purchases and sales.
My Brew Preferences
At home I will dabble a bit with my Moka Pot, but at heart, I am a drip coffee person, and the Peace Coffee instruction above is, in general, the process I go through for a cup. They use 45g of pre-ground coffee beans and 750g of water, which sort of matches my preference. Where I differ is with regard to water temperature. I prefer hotter water than the recommended 200F, I like my water to be just under boiling, more between 205F to 210F.
When I drink coffee away from the house, I prefer espresso made coffee. My favorite espresso is in the form of a latte. Or if I need a cool drink, I do like iced coffee and iced tea as well.
What about you?
—Patty
—**—
Update: My son wrote me about this post and said: Nice coffee article. I have some peace coffee coming in the mail btw. Definitely preferred over my normal brew, even Alicia likes it!
