Starbucks has received a lot of criticism from the ethical lobby. Recently, though, it has tried to clean up its image, introducing and promoting fair trade coffee. However, in contrast to its superficial enthusiasm for fair trade are the figures. In 2005, 3.7% of its coffee sales were of fair trade coffee, with another 24.6% being of coffee from Starbucks’ own “coffee and farmer equity” scheme. That means that the vast majority of its coffee is still from non-fair trade sources.

Starbucks has an answer to these criticisms: fair trade certifiers only work with small co-operatives, and so can only supply a small section of the market. Fair trade coffee is necessarily a niche product that can’t be rolled out to the whole market. Assuming that this is true, does it excuse them for paying low prices to coffee producers?

The argument seems to be this: It’s impossible for Starbucks to source more of its coffee from fair trade schemes, therefore they can’t be blamed for paying low prices to coffee growers. We shouldn’t blame Starbucks for paying unfair prices to coffee-growers because there simply aren’t enough fair-trade schemes to supply the market. They have no choice but to buy from uncertified sources, paying under the odds as they do so.

This is a case of the restricting the options fallacy. Starbucks do not have to choose between just two options: buying from a fair trade co-operative and paying an unfair price. There is a third option available: they could pay a fair price to all of their suppliers, whether they are members of fair trade co-operatives or not. Of course, this wouldn’t entitle them to display the fair-trade symbol on their products, but that isn’t the point; the point is that they would be acting ethically in dealing with their suppliers.

For Starbucks’ defence to work, it would have to be the case that the only way of treating coffee farmers fairly is by using a fair-trade scheme. This conjures up images of Starbucks desperately trying to haggle the price of coffee beans upwards, but their coffee bean suppliers refusing to budge, insisting on receiving an unfair deal!

If this is the best defence that Starbucks has to offer, then it seems that the ethical criticism sticks.