About Fairtrade coffee

80% of the world’s coffee is produced by 25 million smallholder coffee farmers and despite Coffee being the most valuable and widely traded tropical agricultural product, many of the smallholder farmers fail to earn a reliable living from coffee.

The coffee market experiences significant fluctuations in price, and coffee crop yields and productivity are increasingly struggling in the face of climate change. As a result, smallholder coffee farmers livelihoods and futures are challenged.

With fairtrade, coffee farmers are guaranteed to receive at least the fairtrade minimum price, which aims to act as a safety net should market prices fall below a sustainable level. Coffee farmers also receive the additional fairtrade premium, to invest in community improvements and increasing their productivity and quality of product.

How does Waitrose support Fairtrade coffee?

We have a wide range of Fairtrade coffees in our stores. In addition to that, the coffee we serve from our in-store vending machines is 100% fairtrade.

Through 12 months’ worth of the sales of fairtrade coffee in our stores, plus free coffee in our cafes and vending machines, $670,000 fairtrade premium has been returned to smallholder farmers. At least 25% of Fairtrade premium received by coffee farmers is spent on increasing their quality and productivity of crop. Every cup of fairtrade certified Waitrose coffee that you drink, is one that you can know has been produced to high ethical standards and quality.

Waitrose is going further with Fairtrade to impact small scale coffee producers and last year launched a joint project to support APPCER, a Fairtrade certified association of small coffee producers from the Cerrado region of Brazil. It has helped farmers work towards combating climate change, invested in infrastructure improvements and training for its farmers in good agricultural practices.

Shop fairtrade coffee

We offer a wide variety of fairtrade coffee, including instant, roast and ground including unique province.