Brewing Demonstration Starbucks Coffee Co. has joined the likes of Nike and Wal-Mart in that rogue's gallery of American corporations that, activists say, exploit foreign suppliers and workers for fatter profits. The Seattle-based chain of gourmet coffee shops was the target of a March 20 national protest by consumer, environmental and other public-interest groups that claim Starbucks refuses to promote coffee supplied by South American growers who have been adequately compensated for their crop.
Under the auspices of an organization called the Organic Consumers Association, protesters leafleted outside a Starbucks in St. Petersburg. The Tampa Bay area protest was part of a coordinated series of demonstrations in 100 cities across the country that coincided with the annual meeting of Starbucks stockholders in Washington state.
The Organic Consumers Association contends that Starbucks Chief Executive Orin C. Smith won't specify whether dairy products sold in his company's shops came from animals that were doped with genetically modified organisms, including Monsanto's recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, or rBGH. The hormone, fed to cows to induce higher milk production, is considered a cancer-causing agent by many scientists.
Rikki Voss was one of about 20 protesters waving placards and distributing anti-Starbucks fliers in front of the Gateway Crossings shopping center store off Roosevelt Boulevard. "We want to further the consumer pressure on them to start using organic milk and seriously promote fair-trade coffee," said Voss, 23, of Tampa. "We want them to take a strong stance against recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone, which is found in a majority of their products, their baked goods, their milk, their cream, basically everything they have."
Starbucks CEO Smith lodged a protest of his own in a March 16 letter to six Organic Consumers Association leaders. Smith questioned why association representatives won't meet with Starbucks executives to talk over their differences.
"As with virtually every other retailer of food products, Starbucks must rely on governmental agencies charged with food safety responsibility to determine what foods are safe for human consumption," Smith wrote. "We, therefore, have concluded that the products offered in our stores are safe, either because they have been approved by government agencies or conform to government regulat(ion)s."
Protester Michael Henkel, 33, of Clearwater, said rBGH is banned in every industrialized country except the United States. Here, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is reviewing continued use of the suspected carcinogen, Henkel said.
Regarding questions about his coffee suppliers, Smith cited praise from TransFair USA. TransFair certifies American consumer goods that have been imported from overseas producers who were paid decently for their wares and, in turn, paid their laborers a living wage.
"Starbucks' high-profile support for fair trade sends a powerful and visionary message to the rest of the coffee industry — that the plight of small coffee growers cannot be ignored," Smith quoted TransFair Executive Director Paul Rice.
Anti-Starbucks activists believe Smith is more PR-conscious than socially conscious.
Organic Consumers Association leaders, who complained about genetically engineered corn in Mexican-style fast foods last year, say that sitting down with Smith only wins public-relations points for Starbucks.
Many Starbucks shops have stocked pound bags of certified "fair-trade coffee" on their display shelves since pressure last year by Global Exchange, an anti-corporate globalization group. But Starbucks typically doesn't offer fair-trade joe for consumption in its trendy shops, the protesters say.
The reason, according to protesters, is that Starbucks wants to discourage customers from the fair-trade habit. To earn "fair-trade, shade-grown" certification for coffee, Starbucks suppliers must guarantee growers in Guatemala and other countries a minimum of $1.26 a pound. The "starvation" rate for most standard beans is 30 cents a pound, the protesters say, and the higher wholesale cost would cut into Starbucks' profits. The Organic Consumers Association opposes importation of so-called sun-grown coffee beans. Association leaders say coffee grown by traditional methods, under a canopy of trees without the chemicals required to cultivate beans in open fields, is healthier for the environment and for consumers.
Lisa Skillman, manager of the St. Petersburg Starbucks targeted by leafleting demonstrators earlier this month, said company policy prohibited her from commenting on the local protest. But Skillman displayed a bit of Smith's media savvy by offering free cups of fair-trade coffee to protesters picketing on the sidewalk in front of her shop. All declined to drink.
Protesters picketed Starbucks because they said the chain is the biggest of its kind in the world. Several coffee chains threatened by the global expansion plans of Starbucks enthusiastically sell fair-trade java, the protesters noted.
The only mainstream media outlet to show up during the first hour of the Starbucks protest in St. Petersburg was WTVT-Ch. 13. Two former reporters at the Fox-owned television station sued WTVT for refusing to air their expose on rBGH in 1997. Fired reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre alleged that WTVT caved in to Monsanto pressure. Akre won a $425,000 decision against Fox, which the station is appealing. Wilson won nothing, and he is appealing that.
WTVT News Director Philip Metlin saw no special significance in Fox 13 being the only Bay area TV station to cover the Starbucks protest. "It's news," Metlin said. "I don't think Steve and Jane invented it."
Contact Staff Writer Francis X. Gilpin at 813-248-8888, ext. 130, or frangilpin@weeklyplanet.com.
This article appears in Mar 29 – Apr 4, 2001.