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Kraft joins with Rainforest Alliance
The alliance, announced Tuesday, comes with large U.S. coffee sellers responding to activists' calls to pay more heed to social, economic and environmental issues in coffee production.
Kraft committed to increase purchases of certified coffee, pay more to farmers that employ sustainable farm management practices and deepen its involvement with coffee-producing communities.
Sustainable coffee production aims to grow coffee without damaging the environment, with improved social conditions for farmers and workers and in a way that provides farmers with better returns for their coffee.
Separately, some U.S. companies also have committed recently to sell fair-trade coffee, produced by cooperatives of small-scale farmers in Latin America.
"We are delighted to partner with the Rainforest Alliance and link our sustainability efforts to a widely respected organization with an established certification protocol and a strong local presence in major coffee-growing areas," said Annemieke Wijn, Kraft's senior director of commodity sustainability programs.
Kraft said it has supported sustainable coffee production and coffee farmers for more than a decade in Colombia, Peru, Vietnam and elsewhere.
"This commitment by Kraft Foods is powerful evidence that the concept of sustainable coffee, once limited to niche markets, is ready to enter the mainstream coffee market," said Tensie Whelan, executive director of the Rainforest Alliance.
Kraft's stock price closed unchanged at $30 a share yesterday on the New York Stock Exchange.
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