The phrase "Fair Trade coffee" has percolated into the vernacular, and the label it represents pervades the business at every level.
If the movement has shed some of its intensity since those heady early days, you can chalk that up to the complacency of success. Fair Trade certification, intended to raise the living standards of coffee farmers in Nicaragua and elsewhere, has grown into a complex bureaucracy and an industry in itself.
In 2003 Dunkin' Donuts agreed to make all of its espresso drinks certified. Nestle, one of the biggest coffee companies on Earth, launched a Fair Trade line in October 2005; the same month, McDonald's agreed to test Fair Trade in 658 outlets. High-end specialty coffees are the fastest growing sector of the industry, and Fair Trade is the fastest growing specialty coffee; demand for it has ballooned by around 70 percent annually for the last five years.
You'd think this confluence of social responsibility and double lattes, good business practices and lefty politics, would make one of its founders a happy man. But he and a growing number of roasters say the Fair Trade movement has lost its way.
