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How important is sustainability to Cafédirect?

The Gold Standard trading policy ensures producers are guaranteed a sustainable trading partnership with fixed minimum prices. Cafédirect still works with the producers it was first loaned coffee from 10 years ago, and works alongside co- operatives through good and bad times.

This is strikingly different from how the global coffee market traditionally operates. The continual drop in prices, caused by the over-supply of produce, the decline in consumption, and weak trading controls, leave producers vulnerable as traders take the cheapest coffee from whichever country or organisation is prepared to sell it.

Cafédirect's relationship with its growers is also different because it buys its coffee directly from grower-owned businesses. Most coffee traders buy from exporters and other long chains of middlemen.

As the market conditions are so tough, knowledge sharing is one of the strongest advantages for producers working with Cafédirect. This is built into the way it buys coffee as well as the advice it provides on market conditions and export strategies.

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