My preference? I’ve said it before: Good, tasty, ethically traded coffee, but what does the last part really mean?

Instead of describing how unethical supermarket coffees are, or why Fair Trade isn’t really fair, here are two short stories.

Matagalpa, Nicaragua

Finca Limoncillo

— is a coffee farm in the Matagalpa region of Nicaragua. Dr Erwin Mierisch and family own the farm. They’re well respected for their coffee output — as well as their experimentation with coffee processing — they have produced cup of excellence coffee. Needless to say, their coffee tastes great.

More interesting for me, is the way the business works with their employees. Depending on the time of the season, there’s around 60 families living and working on the farm.

The families have free housing on the farm, complete with electricity and running water — also for free. All of the workers receive free food. There are day care facilities for the children — free of charge. Healthcare facilities are provided, on the farm, for free. On-site teachers help to educate the employees and teach them things such as pottery and weaving, in order that they have diverse skills are are not dependant solely on coffee. The teachers are well paid for their services.

By this time, you might be thinking; that’s great, but, it probably means the employees are paid very poorly in exchange for all of this “free” stuff? In fact, the employees are paid around 30% higher than the typical wages in the region.

So where’s the catch?

It is true that someone must be paying for all this. The consumer — perhaps the coffee is super expensive? Not so. At retail pricing, the bulk of their coffee isn’t much more expensive than the supposedly premium Italian brands you’ll buy in the supermarket.

So at one end we have a great social business, at the other end, we have affordable pricing — how is this possible? The clue is the middle. Or rather it’s what’s not in the middle. I buy the coffee direct from the roaster — Hasbean. Steve, the owner, buys the coffee direct from the farm at a price that enables them to run a great business.

By cutting out many of the people in the middle, everybody wins.