Justice at Jazzman’s Day of Action
Today the New York City Fair Trade Coalition is joining United Students for Fair Trade, Oxfam America, and Global Exchange for a nationwide “Justice at Jazzman’s Day of Action.” To participate, please paste the text below into an email message and send it to info-at-retailbrandgroup-dot-com.
If you BCC fair.trade.nyc-at-gmail-dot-com on your email, we’ll buy you a cup of Fair Trade coffee … or tea!
Here is the text:
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Husein Kitabwalla
Vice President of Business Development
Dear Mr. Kitabwalla,
As a Fair Trade consumer, I support a full conversion of Jazzman’s Cafes around the country to 100% Fair Trade Certified coffee, tea, sugar and cocoa.
Whereas an unjust price paid to producers contributes to the poverty of millions of farming families around the world, Fair Trade offers a more equitable alternative. Fair Trade ensures that a minimum price is being paid to the small farmers and laborers who produce the food we eat and the coffee we drink. It also sets guidelines for environmental practices that contribute to ecological sustainability.
By committing to serve only Fair Trade Certified products, Jazzman would make a powerful statement about its commitment to the basic human rights of farmers and workers around the world.
Thank you,
YOUR NAME
YOUR SCHOOL (if you are a student, but you don’t have to be a student
to send in the email)
YOUR ORGANIZATION (if you are a member of an organization)
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BACKGROUND (from USFT’s website):
Jazzman’s is a relatively new hip and happening coffee shop. In less than 5 years, Jazzman’s has grown rapidly to campuses all over the U.S. and now has over 120 locations. Since Sodexho is Jazzman’s parent company, its growth will likely continue by placing Jazzman’s cafes on campuses that currently have a contract with Sodexho. This fact provides our campaign leverage because campuses that have a contract with Sodexho can apply additional pressure on their university to make Jazzman’s go 100% Fair Trade. Currently, Jazzman’s is attempting to appease its progressive student base by carrying Rainforest Alliance certified coffees and one fair trade blend. This is a low cost, low-bar sustainability strategy to maximize profit and appear socially and environmentally conscious. Our goal is to use affiliate support to apply pressure on campuses where Sodexho operates to elevate all Jazzman’s locations to the high-bar in sustainability—100% Fair Trade Certified products. Jazzman’s rapid growth will work to our advantage as we reach out to their potential market and motivate other students to demand 100% Fair Trade—effectively stunting their growth until they agree to source 100% Fair Trade Certified products.
This campaign is pivotal to the future of the Fair Trade movement. This campaign provides us the opportunity to drastically increase the amount of Fair Trade products available to students and create huge positive benefits for coffee, cocoa, and tea farmers worldwide. This will significantly increase the impact of our involvement. For Fair Trade to be a true success on campus, we need a complete line of options to meet the diversity of demand.
USFT’s Jazzman’s Campaign seeks to leverage the large and growing student support for Fair Trade to pressure the Jazzman’s national café chain into sourcing 100% Fair Trade Certified coffee, cocoa, and tea. USFT will engage all campuses that currently have Jazzman’s cafes, as well as those that do not, in order to gain the support of Jazzman’s existing and potential markets.
The strategy of the campaign will have three main objectives:
1. Target Jazzman’s existing market
2. Target Jazzman’s potential market, and
3. Utilize various media outlets to raise the profile of the campaign
