Cafe Campesino/Coop Coffees Trip to Guatemala & Pacaya Volcano
We (Tripp and Bill) are busy packing for our trip to Guatemala tomorrow for two weeks – the first week as facilitators for a week-long workshop with coffee coop managers and farmers as part of the CRS Cafe Livelihoods Fair Trade Program and the second visiting with our trading partners at APECAFORM and La Chajulense. Last night’s eruption of the Pacaya volcano has left 2″ of ash on the runway of the now closed airport but we’ll keep you posted once we’re on the ground!
Article: A Decade of Crop to Cup
By Jimmy Foglio
In 1998, an inspired Bill Harris Jr. used a home equity loan to finance the first container of coffee for Café Campesino. Today, a dynamic and progressive Fair Trade team is embarking upon its ten year anniversary, where impact and legacy are by design measured in the transformation of lives and local economies, rather than dollars. Now, as we look to expand with a new café, the aim is to maintain an “uncomplicated kindness,” and remain true to the principles upon which we were founded.
In his fourth year as president, Tripp Pomeroy reminds us of a simple business model, which filters back to fair trade and the golden rule.
“It’s coffee, not an organ transplant,” grins Tripp, dapper in a white button down, nestling into an amber lobby sofa. “The owners have a commitment to healthy growth, while serving farmers and the public; customers would agree that we have grown — and want to grow — not to become a brand, but to keep our identity, to maintain our grassroots.”
Hearing the word “growth” should not cause alarm among Fair Trade purists. Equal Exchange, for example, has shown the ability to increase sales while maintaining their principles. Equal Exchange has had an average annual rise of 24% since 1990. All the while, according to worker-owner Rodney North, they continue to “maximize social contributions, not profits…with attention to capital structure, bylaws, [and] personnel policies. (1) This means more fair trade, happier producers and better relationships.
We treat people as they want to be treated,” Tripp nods, “and provide unusually great coffee.”
Tripp became involved with Café Campesino after spending several weeks “locked in a cabin” with Bill and his brother Lee, where the emphasis was business approach, rather than profit.
“It was a vehicle to become myself again; there was no catch, no having to read someone, just a kind ‘win-win’ method.” Tripp acknowledges a constant thrill in that, a decisive verdict on human nature that is validated by customers, vendors and partners.
Along with the opening of the café, which is slated tentatively for mid-June, Café Campesino is taking part in the internationally recognized celebration of World Fair Trade Day. On May 10th, Café Campesino will host a coffee break, which will be part of a worldwide event that is aiming for the Guinness Book of World Records with a goal of 3,000 participants.
World Fair Trade Day was founded by Sofia Minney, and this year’s theme of ecology will bring together 70 nations belonging to IFAT, from the recycled metals of Madagascar’s La Maison to the locally sourced palm rib of Indonesian’s APKRI.
While this is an event that will range greatly due to its diverse participation base, some of the focus will be on how to promote Fair Trade dialogue, the benefits of going organic, reducing environmental waste, and strengthening community building — there are even fashion shows and soccer games being scheduled.
But the vision to create a soccer game in the name of Fair Trade seems near pedestrian when juxtaposed with the foresight of Bill Harris. Forever unassuming and cerebral, Bill calmly discusses the opportunities forthcoming in the future.
“As we look into the next ten years, we know there will be so many opportunities. Just like this business sort of landed on us and sprouted,” he explains, “we are open to following ideas and doing what feels right for everyone involved; this is about being in a business that honors everyone on the chain.”
And that chain could lead to “other fair trade products, or even other locations,” Bill acknowledges. Yet he’s perfectly willing to admit that we don’t have the next decade figured out – and that’s part of the fun.
Endnotes: (1) Equal Exchange Annual Report, available at www.equalexchange.com/2004-annual-report, p.10; Rodney North cited in Jacqueline DeCarlo, “Fair Trade,” Oxford: OneWorld Press, 2007, pp. 75-76.
Editorial: Digging Deeper with Bill Harris
In last month’s newsletter, I promised to write a “State of Fair Trade” piece for this month’s edition. I made this promise as we were returning from a week of hard work and plenty of laughs in Nicaragua with representatives from most of our Latin American trading partners and fellow members of Cooperative Coffees. On several occasions during this past week I turned on the laptop, sat down in the “writing chair,” and attempted to bang out this promised treatise. I began as I usually do, creating a brief mind-map of ideas and angles, starting with a plea against being “labeled.” I followed with the common coffee labels – organic, Fair Trade Certified, Utz Certified, Rainforest Alliance, and such. Then came the snappy, “You can certify a product, but you can’t certify a relationship.” Then letters – TFUSA (TransfairUSA), FLO (Fair Trade Labeling Organization), IFAT (International Fair Trade Association), FTF (Fair Trade Federation), USFT (United Students for Fair Trade), FTRN (Fair Trade Resource Network) — some were circled, others scratched through, each representing a significant piece of the way we do business. But running this business demands so much more than an impressive collection of acronyms. Finally, the brain purge produced questions about the way our economy works and where Fair Trade fits in to that economy with companies like Sam’s Club jumping into the Fair Trade movement.
So where is this article headed? Here’s where it almost headed: to a place that would allow me to air more complaints about the State of Fair Trade, that would attempt to articulate our frustration with the low-bar approach to Fair Trade that now dominates the US coffee scene, that questions the reality and benefits of a system that celebrates token involvement from companies like Sam’s and Wal-Mart. But an article like that will probably be read by only a few people, enjoyed by fewer, and only really understood by fellow frustrated Fair Traders.
I was rescued from this Fair Trade writing abyss by a late afternoon phone call with another Fair Trade importer who, after hearing of challenges that we are having with one of our long-time trading partners, stated, “Stay positive. I think you can work this out. You gotta keep the faith…”
We started Cafe Campesino almost 10 years ago with a heavy dose of this kind of trusting optimism and knowledge that good things do happen when you work hard, stay true to your principles, and “keep the faith”. We find the Fair Trade environment to be quite challenging these days. Sometimes I find myself searching for terminology that better describes what we really do, like “friend trade” rather than “Fair Trade”. But buzz words are just buzz words, and labels are just labels – what really matters is the meaning behind them. So rather than harp on what is wrong with this perplexing movement as Fair Trade principled organizations are challenged by the proliferation of Fair Trade certified products, I will focus on what we at Cooperative Coffees are calling our “Fair Trade checklist”. This list highlights what, in our opinion, real Fair Trade looks like and why, in a crowded Fair Trade marketplace, we are different. So if you want to find glowing reports on the movement or dire predictions for the demise of Fair Trade, look for a different article. Both types are easy to find. Your search is over if you like to sip coffee that has these principles behind it:
Our Philosophy…
• Commitment to place the trading partners, their identity, and their product front and center. We do not hide behind anecdotes of sourcing from secret, mystical mountains – we want our customers to know the people who grow our coffee.
• Commitment to proactively connect through business on a personal level. We want relationships to become friendships. We encourage visits/exchange that cultivate a transparent, personal relationship with ongoing contact and dialogue.
• We are willing to introduce trading partners to other potential Fair Trade partners in the US and facilitate new opportunities for the trading partner. We unselfishly share information and actively introduce trading partners to more market opportunities, even if this doesn’t serve our best business interests.
• We understand the consequences of entering into a long-term contract and relationship with marginalized producers — a relationship that promises hope for the future but is risky. We prioritize fulfilling our commitment, regardless of the circumstances.
• We are putting in place an industry-leading transparent document trail that will allow our customers to trace any cup of coffee back to the cooperative that exported it, and ultimately to the farmer who grew it.
• We are willing to walk away from a potential business opportunity when other Fair Traders are already in place.
• We accept and respect the unique organizational structure and culture of the trading partner. We do not impose democracy – but we do encourage it.
• Our contracts exceed Fair Trade standard pricing formulas and should be acceptable to trading partners based on their actual costs of doing business, their cost of living, and more subjective financial needs. We ask them how much they need us to pay, per pound, so that the system works for them. We cannot always meet the price – but usually we can and, most importantly, this is a two-way conversation. We are committed to building alternative pricing models that replace the current NY ‘C’ pricing scheme which mainly serves Wall Street.
• We don’t want to be the only buyers of our trading partners’ coffee! This is illogical in today’s market of limited editions and exclusive contracts…but this position is certainly in the best interest of the producers.
• We believe all trade should be fair and are developing a scaleable approach to trading fairly that other folks can copy, not a self-serving model that is admirable but not applicable to the industry as a whole.
Our Business Practices…
• We address prefinancing proactively, openly, and up front. We do NOT believe in a “don’t ask-don’t tell” prefinance policy that seems to have become the industry norm.
• We recognize that the established Fair Trade coffee standards, including minimum pricing, are not adequate and should not define our relationships with our producers. Those standards simply play the role of insurance. We get excited by the depth, breadth and scope of the relationship. Insurance is something to fall back on, not a measure of success.
• We consider open price contracts that adjust based on market conditions to be the standard. Fixed price contracts are dangerous for the coop in a rising market, so we opt not to use them.
• We do not have other products subsidizing our overhead. If we do it, it is Fair Trade.
Article: Meeting Reflections from Maty de Barrios
Maty de Barrios is Café Campesino’s production supervisor. Last month, Maty traveled down to Nicaragua to represent Café Campesino at our Cooperative Coffees’ annual meeting. She spent the first part of the week attending producer workshops and visiting producer farms to see how their coffee is grown and produced. The following are Maty’s reflections on the time she spent with our producer partners in Nicaragua.
Maty and her new friends outside the hotel in Nicaragua. Standing L to R: Linda Ryan of Los Armadillos, Wilman Ernesto of Fondo Paez, Maty, Esperanza Dionisio Castillo of CAC Pangoa, Miguel Angel Martinez. Kneeling: Marcial Lazo Mucha
I know that my life is comfortable and good. I know that I have few worries and much to be thankful for. But the trip to Nicaragua made me learn to appreciate even more the comforts and luxuries in my life. When I come in to work, I know that I have all the resources I need to do my job, and I have pleasant working conditions as well. When the producers go out in the field to harvest this coffee, they don’t get to enjoy air conditioning. Some of them don’t even have all the equipment necessary to harvest and process the coffee, making their jobs much more time-consuming and difficult. They work hard for long hours in the heat, and even with the Fair Trade prices they receive, most producers don’t have any extra money to buy anything beyond covering their basic needs. But Fair Trade has benefited them tremendously, and I want to know that I had a part in that. I want to make the coffee the best I can — I want to sell as much as we can so that the farmers benefit more. I think it is the least I can do considering how much time and effort they put into the production.
I admire these producers for having the strength to work for eight hours a day, harvesting and cleaning coffee in the heat. They wait for organic certification, even though the process is long and expensive; they harvest and process the coffee largely by hand because the quality is so much better; they exchange ideas with one another about how to improve the coffee. The environment we have created by building these Fair Trade relationships is challenging, but each of us understands that is a collective challenge, and that the way to get through it is by tackling the issues together. Aside from the obvious benefits of this way of doing business, like the safer environment for children on the farms because of the lack of pesticides and other chemicals, the higher premiums they receive for their product, and the higher quality of the coffee they sell, other benefits are created – this relationship with other producers that provides a sounding-board for ideas, a place to turn for support, and a knowledge that they are making a difference in the world. I am impressed at their courage and resolution to do the job as well as they do.
Introduction: Diggin’ In to Fair Trade
Hot coffee weather has finally made its way down to Americus and it looks like it’s here to stay! We think you’ll agree that temperatures in double, rather than triple, digits — at least until next summer anyway — are worthy of a steaming cup of fairly traded joe. Good timing, too, because in this edition of Fair Grounds we have a lot to cover and a tasty cup of Café Campesino is just the right fuel to get you through it all. Read on for a good hard look at Fair Trade by Bill Harris in his report on our annual Cooperative Coffees meeting in Matagalpa, Nicaragua (from which he, Maty, and Tripp have literally just returned), an e-visit by our good friend Jackie DeCarlo of CRS, who gives us the inside scoop on her recently released book Fair Trade: A Beginner’s Guide, a spotlight on our very good friends at Manna Grocery and Deli in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (who we’ll be teaming up with later this month for their annual Kentuck event in Tuscaloosa!), and a full, exciting calendar of events.
Editorial: Can Fair Trade Change Your Life?
We at Café Campesino are very excited to announce that our good friend and Senior Program Advisor to Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Jackie DeCarlo, recently released a book that we consider a most effective introduction to understanding how Fair Trade works in a global, societal, and personal context. Whether you know a lot or just a little about the way Fair Trade works, this book is worth checking out. You can buy a copy from the Fair Trade Resource Network (www.ftrn.org), from A Greater Gift (www.agreatergift.org), or ask your local bookstore to order a copy. Read on to hear what Jackie has to say… Thank you Jackie for all that you do!
by Jacqueline DeCarlo
To me, Fair Trade can be just as important to Café Campesino customers as it is to coffee farmer partners, and not just because coffee lovers enjoy tasty jolts of java. Of course, I don’t want in any way to minimize the struggles of poverty or lack of opportunity that coffee farmers face. I know those of us who buy Café Campesino beans have a host of privileges that our friends in the coffee producing countries rarely enjoy. The laptop I am typing this article on with the help of a wireless connection is just one example. But as we make our way in U.S. society we are bombarded with messages and traditions that suggest who we are as individuals is directly related to what we own or what zip codes we have. Just as we are concerned about the human dignity of those who lack healthy food and clean drinking water, I think we should be concerned about the moral and emotional deficiencies faced by those living in a culture driven by materialism. Through conscious consumption, Fair Trade can transform the lives of folks at the end of the supply chain just as it does the lives of farmers at the beginning, and that’s why I wrote Fair Trade: A Beginner’s Guide.
The book is my attempt to explain where Fair Trade comes from, how it works, and who powers its growth and evolution. It shares facts and figures, and draws on real-life experiences and expertise of Fair Trade companies such Café Campesino, highlighting inspiring stories of average consumers and producers. Beyond offering up history lessons, role models, and action items, the book also tries to make the case that Fair Trade helps consumers — especially those of us in the United States and Canada — make sense of our societies’ drive to acquire and accumulate.
As readers of this newsletter know, when you choose Fair Trade through companies like Café Campesino you aren’t choosing just a product, you are becoming part of a movement that promotes values based on concern for people and the planet. You are involved in a partnership that benefits all the participants along the Café Campesino coffee path (which is reproduced in the book thanks to the go-ahead from Tripp!) It may sound like a lot of heady stuff steaming up from a cup of coffee, but the people and Fair Trade Organizations you’ll read about in the book are proof positive that Fair Trade changes lives. I hope you find the book a useful resource to help it expand your notion of what is possible beyond just a delicious cup of coffee!
Editorial: The State of Fair Trade: Where We Stand
Producers and roasters strike a pose at the Coop Coffees AGM in Matagalpa, Nicaragua
“I want everyone in the room to recognize that as this meeting comes to a close, it has just begun to rain very hard here in Nicaragua. In our country, rain is a good sign. It brings growth and opportunity.” Corporino Feliz, FEDECARES, Dominican Republic
I write this as Tripp, Abby and I are flying back from an exhilarating week in Nicaragua. Cooperative Coffees, of which Café Campesino is a founding member, just concluded our 7th Annual Membership Meeting which was hosted by our long-time trading partner CECOCAFEN in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. This year’s assembly brought together 32 farmers and leaders from 18 cooperatives in Latin America, 36 roaster representatives from the US and Canada, along with numerous allies who support our work in the areas of development, finance and certification.
This meeting was a bold step forward for the roasters and coffee producers who collaborate through Cooperative Coffees’ role as the only Fair Trade, organic green coffee bean purchasing cooperative of its kind. Our annual meeting has evolved as our organization has grown. When Café Campesino joined together with six other roasters to start Cooperative Coffees in 1999, we purchased green coffee from 3 farmer cooperatives in Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Our first annual meeting was hosted in 2001 by Peace Coffee in Minneapolis, attended by about 10 people and most of us slept on the floor of Scott’s and TJ’s apartments. As I looked around the meeting room in Matagalpa at the experience and leadership gathered for a week of open, frank discussion about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead, I could not help but be hopeful about the future of the Fair Trade movement. This passionate, diverse group of leaders is not waiting on direction from others.
Farmer cooperatives continue to face numerous challenges and need support from their trading partners. More than ever, small-scale farmers urgently need to see more tangible benefits from their commitment to organics and Fair Trade, and the Fair Trade movement as a whole faces increasing challenges and the pressing need to better define and articulate itself. The great news is that the Cooperative Coffees family, roasters and farmers alike, is rising to the challenge!
With this Nicaragua experience providing an appropriate backdrop, let’s dive into “The State of Fair Trade”. In order to keep the length of this article within our self-imposed limit of the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee, I will break the topic down this way: This month we examine our internal system and network; next month we tackle the external trends and influences that keep us on our toes.
At Cafe Campesino, we attempt to incorporate the principles of Fair Trade into every business decision that we make. “Attempt” isn’t a typo – and it hurts a bit to use this word — but we must acknowledge that purity rarely exists and that we are always striving to improve. Our meeting in Nicaragua presented a dilemma of sorts — it simultaneously confirmed how far we have come and how well our system is working — and reminded us of how far we have to go and how much work needs to be done.
A quick description of our Fair Trade model: Cafe Campesino is a roaster/owner of Cooperative Coffees. Cooperative Coffees is a purchasing cooperative modeled after the farmer cooperative structure. Each member has one share and one vote and the cooperative should work on the farmers’ behalf to help the farmer directly access the market. Working collectively with fellow farmers (or roasters), all participants should achieve results and build relationships through their individual cooperatives that would not be possible if they were operating alone. The big question — is it working?
All the standard methods that we use to evaluate commercial enterprises easily illustrate that indeed this system is working – sales of coffee at Cafe Campesino and other roasteries in our coop are growing rapidly. Almost all of the farmer cooperatives that we work with are exporting more Fair Trade coffee each year; some can’t fill all of their orders. Even though there are now over 500 roasters in the US offering Fair Trade coffee, our phone continues to ring off the hook. Cooperative Coffees has 22 members and each week we receive inquiries from roasters who want to know more about our model. Our coop will soon import its 10 millionth pound of Fair Trade, organic coffee and we are forecasting 30% growth for the foreseeable future. So this unique “farmer-to-coop-to-coop-to-roaster” model sure seems to be a hit!
But our meeting in Nicaragua made visible challenges that we must address if we are really dedicated to forming long term, mutually beneficial, Fair Trade partnerships with farmers all over the world. The meeting was designed to encourage attending farmer cooperatives to share “best practices” with one another — and these exercises proved once again that the answers are usually already present at the local level. Some highlights of our internal examination include:
Building a network that helps farmers learn from each other. A cooperative in Peru is working on a plan to provide consulting work and build a farmer exchange program with a cooperative in Guatemala through assistance from a non-profit that attended the meeting. Many of the coop leaders in attendance stated that the annual meeting’s programming was fantastic, but that the most important benefit of the meeting and of the relationship with Cooperative Coffees is the friendship that they have formed with fellow farmer cooperative leaders who share the same challenges on a daily basis.
Helping farmers find a unified voice in a confusing Fair Trade market. All the coffee farmers I know say they need to earn more money for their work. Meanwhile, a futures market in New York continues to dominate the pricing mechanisms that determine the value of a pound of coffee. Through Cooperative Coffees, we fully support the farmers getting higher minimum prices by raising our minimums above the commonly recognized Fair Trade minimum. We also help the farmer cooperative earn a higher price by contracting to pay higher prices before the harvest begins, giving the cooperative a negotiating tool that they can use to get higher prices from other buyers. Farmers are more comfortable than ever before banding together and telling “the market” that good coffee will not exist if prices don’t go up — and the many buyers seem to be listening.
Identifying our problems as problems of success. Many of the organizations in our system are under cash flow pressure — roasters, our coop and the farmer coops. We are all growing quickly and need more capital to support this growth. The good news is that we have identified this and several innovative lending institutions are stepping in to help. We have experienced supply problems during the last year — there are more buyers looking for Fair Trade, organic coffee than ever before and this can occasionally affect our access to supply. Again, there is good news. This situation forces us to examine and deepen the relationship with producer cooperatives, often moves the price to the farmer up, and can result in a renewed and strengthened partnership. Some farmers attending the meeting expressed dissatisfaction with the percentage of the price that we pay to their cooperative that actually makes its way back to the farmer. The Fair Trade movement must wrestle with this issue — our system must provide noticeable impact at the farm level in order to be sustainable. We are investigating this issue with all of the cooperatives in our network and will push the cooperatives to be as efficient as possible, and certainly transparent, concerning the financial and social impact of our purchases.
Launching a number of initiatives during the next year that will strengthen our network and help fortify our Fair Trade model. We will launch a transparency project within the next 90 days that will allow coffee to be traced directly from our roasted coffee bags to the farmer’s cooperative, and ultimately to the farm. We are building several internal communication systems within Cooperative Coffees that will establish advisory and governance roles for producers within our organization. We are partnering with a local university to track the negative effect that a very weak US dollar has had on the net price paid to farmers and attempting to find ways to share the currency risk with the cooperatives.
As we assess the state of Cafe Campesino and Cooperative Coffee’s Fair Trade network and systems, I am reminded of an Ethiopian farmer’s response when asked how Fair Trade has improved his life. He said, “We are thankful that we now have a school in the community as a result of our Fair Trade partnerships, but my children still walk to school without shoes on their feet.”
We left the meeting in Nicaragua with a renewed spirit and enthusiasm for this work we call Fair Trade. Sure, problems were revealed, but these problems were addressed and potential solutions were discussed. Problem solving, after all, lies at the heart of our work as Fair Traders. This year’s meeting revealed a genuine commitment and dedication to making Fair Trade more effective… consensus has it that we all left Nicaragua invigorated more than ever.
Less than 2% of the world’s coffee is sold under Fair Trade terms, so we have a long, long way to go. But Fair Trade is a marathon, not a sprint… and if this year’s meeting showed anything, it is that the members of Cooperative Coffees and our trading partners have the stamina needed to stay in the race.
Community Caravan
What is supposed to be downtime in the Café Campesino world is turning out to be just the opposite!
On July 16th, after spending a long, hard week training Americus’ youth (including Tripp’s son Hugh and daughter Maria Sol), in the art of soccer… European-style, Eurotech coaches Petr Prochazka of the Czech Republic and Robert Bartlett of Scotland visited us at the roastery to get a break from the oppressive heat and learn about this thing called Café Campesino. Petr and Robert – it was a pleasure meeting you and on behalf of Americus’ soccer fans (and yes, there are many more than one might think), THANK YOU for visiting us down here in the hottest corner of the country’s prettiest state!
Tripp with the Sweet Temptations Coffee Crew
On July 20th, Tripp spent the morning visiting our friends Young and Surelyn Lee and family and their top-notch staff at Sweet Temptations in Suwanee, talking about coffee, organics, and Fair Trade… talk about Southern hospitality – thanks Sweet Temptations for hosting Tripp and family! That afternoon, Tripp traveled over to Buford to visit Café Campesino customer and friend Pam Chandler and her crew at the inviting Red Sky Café to talk coffee, espresso and more coffee. On Sunday, Tripp and family stopped off at long time Café Campesino supporter and customer the Crimson Moon in Dahlonega, Georgia for an outstanding lunch on the Moon’s second floor open porch overlooking the town square. Each of these places is different and all are a must see… check them out, you won’t be disappointed… guaranteed!
This past Saturday (August 4th), Bill hopped on a plane to Colombia for a strictly coffee oriented visit (wink, wink, nudge nudge, say no more, saaaay no more). Stay tuned for more on Bill’s excellent adventures in Colombia!
On Saturday, August 18th, Tripp and his wife will be in sunny Savannah sittin’ at Sentient (the Sentient Bean) sippin’ coffee and splicing together a six-minute segment about sustainable trade with our friend and Sentient Bean owner Kristin and SCAD bud Michael. Stay tuned for a YouTube link to this work in progress in the near future. Then on the 25th and 26th, Geoffrey will be back in town to serve up Café Campesino at the BRAG SummerRide 2007, a Southern Hilly Hundred mile route in beautiful Jasper, Georgia. Jasper is Georgia’s First Mountain City, located in the Marble Capital of Georgia. SummerRide 2007 is an official part of Jasper’s Sesquicentennial Celebration. To learn more about SummerRide 2007, visit www.brag.org.
Also on the 25th, our favorite Cooperative Coffees dynamo and keeper of the flame, Abby Welch, will be married to Josh Trantham (who doubles as Café Campesino’s equipment maintenance guy)… Congratulations Abby and Josh!
Article: Check Out Our New Coffee and More
Café Campesino is now offering a Dominican Republic Medium Roast coffee from a brand new producer partner, FEDECARES. This coffee is Fair Trade and organically grown. Take advantage of this newsletter special and try some out today!
Travel Corn Mugs — We just received our first order of new travel mugs and we’re really excited! Here’s the scoop: Our new travel mugs are made of 100% US-grown corn plastic, they’re biodegradable (it takes about 1 year for them to break down), they’re cup-holder friendly and microwave safe with a 17 oz capacity (one note — they do need to be hand washed). On top of that, they’re a beautiful bright red with a Café Campesino logo wrap-around… check them out in our gift ideas section.
Got Stevia? We do! Café Campesino is thrilled to announce that we have teamed up with the good people of Wisdom Natural Brands to offer our customers SweetLeaf® Stevia in two, easy-to-use, formats… read on to learn more and order!
SteviaPlus Economy Pack – 100 ct. Get the best of all worlds with this special package! SteviaPlus is a completely natural, no-calorie, no-carbs (That’s right. Zip. Zilch. Nada. No calories or carbs whatsoever) supplement that’s 300 times sweeter than sugar (so you use a whole lot less). Just one packet is as sweet as two teaspoons of sugar. And because it’s loaded with fiber, it’s actually (gasp!) good for you, too! Not to mention it’s safe for diabetics and Kosher certified. SteviaPlus uses only the best tasting, highest quality Stevia. And unlike those chemical sweeteners, SteviaPlus is great for cooking and baking. Stir SteviaPlus into your coffee or tea, sweeten up that bowl of cereal, use it in your cooking and baking, and ban the calories and chemicals found in sugar and artificial sweeteners. Your body is a temple, after all.
SteviaClear Liquid (2 fl oz). All natural, no calories, no carbs, no bitter aftertaste, and endless uses. SteviaClear brings pure Stevia extract to liquid form. With 720 servings per bottle, you’re definitely getting your money’s worth. Just two drops of SteviaClear is as sweet as 1 teaspoon of sugar. Drop this pure Stevia extract into your hot or iced coffee or tea. You’ll love getting sweet without paying for it in calories or chemicals. Safe for diabetics, too.