Fair Trade Certified
Fair Trade Certified coffee is produced and traded through an alternative system to the conventional global coffee market. Through the Fair Trade system, producers are assured a minimum price based on the costs of production, not the volatile market price. There is also a Fair Trade premium, which allots money to the coffee co-ops to invest back into their community.
As participants in the Fairtrade program, coffee farms and their organizations must follow Fair Trade regulations to ensure that they are operating in a just and sustainable manner. Producers from small family farms must organize themselves into a collective organization or cooperative. These cooperatives are democratically run and producers must follow labour, environmental, and quality standards. Forced labour is prohibited, as is child labour. All workers must be paid at least minimum wage and this includes women, who are also entitled to benefits such as health care and maternity leave under the Fair Trade Certified regulations.
Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO) International is the international umbrella organization that sets international Fair Trade standards. In Canada, this organization is TransFair Canada, the only independent, third party certifier of Fair Trade products in the country.
Organic Certified
Independent, third-party certification of organic food systems has been the foundation of domestic and international organic food trade. QAI Organic Certification is designed to certify every step of the organic chain: from the land on which the product is grown; to the producers growing the product; to the post-harvest facilities preparing the product; to the processing and handling facilities transforming the product.
About Organic Coffee
We understands the importance of buying organic coffee. It’s more than just finding a better coffee. It’s about finding coffee that is sensitive to the long-term health of the environment. What makes a coffee organic? Organic coffee avoids the harmful chemicals, like DDT and other pesticides, used by the majority of coffee producers. To be certified organic, a farmer must guarantee that chemicals aren’t added to the growing and processing of coffee for a minimum of three years. They must also ensure that how they grow their coffee promotes the long-term health of the environment and the soil.
In reality, organic coffees often benefit the worker more than the end consumer. Most, if not all of the chemicals sprayed on coffee are gone by the time the coffee is in your cup. The pulping, processing and roasting of the beans eliminates the majority of harmful chemicals and pesticides. The farmer, however, is not so fortunate. The spraying of these pesticides and herbicides is extremely detrimental to his health and the environment. In some of these origin countries, they still use powerful chemicals like DDT.
Shade Grown Coffee
Coffee is traditionally grown under the shade of a forest canopy. With advances in mass-harvesting technology and a soaring global demand for coffee, many farmers have shifted to open plantations with little or no surrounding vegetation. This ‘open-field’ concept of farming was introduced to encourage greater crop yields, and was often tied to international aid from countries like the United States. While it maximizes production, with no canopy to protect it, soil erosion quickly becomes a problem. And by destroying the surrounding forest to create plantations, farmers destroy the natural habitats of animals, insects and migratory birds.
The technification of the coffee, as this process is commonly known, also dramatically increases the need for chemical fertilizers to replace the organic material that used to come from the natural shade canopy. Studies have shown that up to 1/2 pound of fertilizer is needed to produce one pound of coffee beans on these farms.
Bird-Friendly Coffee
Similar to shade grown coffee, bird-friendly beans are harvested with an eye for preserving the natural environment and maintaining the habitat of birds and other animals. Preservation of the forest canopy is of particular importance to migratory birds.
Kosher Certified
Our facility, machinery and products have been formally inspected and have passed the rigorous Kosher regulations and requirements. The word kosher means proper or acceptable and has informally entered the English language with that meaning. But kosher laws have their origin in the Bible, and are detailed in the Talmud and the other codes of Jewish tradition. They have been applied through the centuries to ever-changing situations, and these rulings, both ancient and modern, govern BC Kosher certification.
B Corporation Certified
We’re proud to be a Certified B Corporation, using the power of business solve social and environmental problems in a comprehensive and transparent way.
B Corporations are a new type of corporation which uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. B Corporations are unlike traditional responsible businesses because they:
- Meet comprehensive and transparent social and environmental performance standards.
- Institutionalize stakeholder interests.
- Build collective voice through the power of a unifying brand.