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Episode 5 of The BoiseCoffee Podcast centers around two very different, yet connected ways of sourcing coffee: Fair Trade, and Direct Trade. In this installment I outline the history of FLO, and give my reasons why I believe that Direct Trade – as outlined by Intelligentsia here – answers many of the questions and fills many of the holes inherent to Fair Trade.

The two main sources I used for this podcast are this and this. I pulled additional information from here, and I found Intelligentsia’s video at Google SMO in 2011 very enlightening. It’s a long one, but well worth the watch.

The PBS clip that I use at the beginning of this episode has some great graphics to go along with it. Check out the full clip here.

What do you think? Is Fair Trade good as it is, or do you agree that it was flawed since the beginning? Does Direct Trade fix enough of the gaps created by Fair Trade, or do we need to go a step further to help farmers? Drop me a line in the comments below, or let me know on Twitter: @BoiseCoffee. Have a great week!

The Coffee Guy

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