Coffee Co-op Founded to Cultivate Fair Trade Values

Model encourages building communities’ economic assets, distributing wealth

With the mission of “people and the planet before profits,” Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-op was founded to be a Fair Trade coffee business and bring forth a different economic model.

CEO Jeff Moore went to Mexico in 1995 in order to learn about Fair Trade, which at the time he wasn’t able to do in Canada. He found himself in Chiapas where there was a civil war over profits from coffee production, and visited coffee farmers in the mountains who were empowered from being co-op members.

When he returned from the trip Moore incorporated Just Us! as a worker co-operative with his wife and three friends.

“We set up to be a Fair Trade coffee business, that was our only reason to go into business and we set up as a co-op to be consistent with the values of Fair Trade,” he says.

The Fair Trade model is based on small producers organized into co-ops building up economic assets for their communities.

Just Us! put an emphasis on quality whereas most coffee companies at the time were racing to provide the cheapest coffee, adds Moore.

The company now works with approximately 20 producer co-ops worldwide and has expanded beyond coffee to sell tea, chocolate and sugar.

The Wolfville, Nova Scotia-based business has 13 members in its co-op and more than 80 employees.

Using the co-op model has multiple benefits, says Moore, with the primary benefit being to the community where assets are built up over time that are likely to stay within the area.

Customers appreciate products that come from a business with a different kind of ethics, he says.

“From Day 1, we’ve had such enthusiastic customers excited about what we are doing . . . our customers probably appreciate it more from the outside than sometimes we do on the inside of things,” says Moore.

Staff members gain from the sense of ownership and control over their workplace, he says.

“(There is) no reason why in a business long-term employees shouldn’t have a chance to become part owners of the business and share in all the benefits,” he says.

To become a member employees have to invest a minimum of $2,000 — enough so people take it seriously but not so much to be a barrier, notes Moore. The company has profit-sharing that can be re-invested as equity in the business.

Just Us! passed a motion this week that is awaiting approval at its March annual general meeting to have all worker owners on the board, rather than its previous structure with six members.

The board sets direction for the co-op, approves budgets and evaluates the CEO and management performance. There is good reporting for financial, social and environmental performance, says Moore.

Teams are set up for daily operations including production, sales and administration.  The teams are very democratic, he notes.

More companies are now embracing Fair Trade compared to when Moore started Just Us!, he says, as in 1995 Fair Trade wasn’t officially in Canada and people confused it with free trade.

Looking forward, businesses should be more socially responsible and environmentally responsible, he says, adding these issues are becoming mainstream and are present in business schools.

“I certainly think we need to get out of this model where a handful of people get very rich from an enterprise and then most people are (viewed as) expendable,” he says.

To learn more about Just Us! visit www.justuscoffee.com.

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