Salt Lake City, Utah

Coffee Talk

by Ben Fulton

Salt Lake City Weekly - March 29, 2001

It’s amazing how many forces can converge over something as seemingly innocuous as a protest outside a Starbucks coffee house.

Just ask Lisa Durbeck, a 30-year-old computer science researcher, and Jon Jensen, a 25-year-old activist concentrating on nuclear waste issues. Both took time out of their schedules last week to stand outside Starbucks’ 900 South and 900 East location and disburse pamphlets that took the coffee-chain giant to task on two fronts. Part one informed coffee drinkers about the alleged dangers of milk produced with Bovine Growth Hormone (known as rBGH). Part two asks the world’s largest coffee retailer to buy more coffee from wholesalers that return a larger share of profits to overseas coffee workers—most of whom live in abject poverty.

Durbeck and Jensen hawked their pamphlets, all right. But they probably spent more time cooperating with Salt Lake City Police detectives and politely debating representatives from the Utah Dairy Council. So much for the radical edge. But that’s not exactly what they were after, really.

“I don’t know if I’d call it a protest so much as I’d call it a consumer advocacy campaign,” Jensen said.

Durbeck concurred. “This isn’t a boycott. It’s just a call for Starbucks to do a little better than they normally would.”

In the larger picture of this nationwide protest last week, organized by the Minnesota-based Organic Consumers Association and covering Starbucks shops in more than 100 cities, Salt Lake City’s role was minor. But don’t think that stopped the police from showing up. Salt Lake City Police Det. Plouzek, who did not want to divulge his first name, quietly introduced himself, along with two other detectives. Notebook in hand, he took the names of Durbeck and Jensen, then went across the street with his colleagues to record the riotous protest with what appeared to be a digital camera. “Our main purpose here is to observe,” Plouzek said. “It’s part of preparations for the Olympics and other future peaceful demonstrations.”

Meanwhile, Durbeck and Jensen politely sparred with two representatives from the Utah Dairy Council over the merits of rBGH, a hormone injected into cows to increase milk production. Why is rBGH the current demon number one among organic food activists? “I’ve got three words for you: breast cancer, prostate cancer and pus. The cows injected with the hormone have a higher level of udder infection,” said Durbeck.

So the activists’ call is out for Starbucks to guarantee that none of its milk, chocolate, ice cream and baked goods products contain the hormone. That’s a lot of milk, since the coffee-chain buys some 32 million gallons every year.

“To me, [consuming products with rBGH] is a question of unnecessary risk,” Jensen said.

But Becky Low, who works for the dairy council’s nutrition education division, scolded the Organic Consumers Association pamphlet for its errors. She also wanted to remind the public that the U.S. Food and Drug

Administration, World Health Organization, American Medical Association and

National Institute of Health maintain that milk from cows supplemented with rBGH hormone is no different from milk that comes from untreated cows. Since 1994, the vast majority of all milk in the United States is produced with the added hormone.

“The BGH is a naturally occurring protein found in milk, it’s a protein you digest,” Low said. “If the cow’s healthy and being treated right, it’s not going to have an effect on the cow. And because it’s a protein-based hormone, it’s digested and has no effect on humans.”

An equal concern for protesters is the issue of buying coffee that returns a greater share of profits to the worker and farmer, who are usually living in Latin or South America. Coffee that returns a living wage to the grower is called a more “fair trade” kind of brew.

A picky lot, protesters would also like to see Starbucks purchase only organically-grown coffee as well. Jensen said he’s seen coffee-growing conditions in Latin America first hand. Especially alarming was the sight of a Honduran coffee worker who sprinkled pesticides on coffee trees using nothing but a bare hand turned purple from the exposure.

“The low cost of regular coffee doesn’t reflect the total price you pay in the end,” Jensen maintains. “The money you save isn’t worth the cost of pesticides on the environment, or the lax working standards and low pay you’ ll find on most coffee farms.”

A Starbucks spokeswoman in Denver did not return a call from City Weekly. That’s not to say corporate headquarters wasn’t fully aware of the carefully scheduled, nationwide protest. Basically, the company outlined its response to customers and store managers in a six-page, carefully worded defense.

Like the Utah Dairy Council, Starbucks reminds consumers in its letter that products containing the growth hormone have been deemed safe. However, it goes on to say that the chain hopes to offer all of its milk free of the hormone, although that’s hard to do if less than 5 percent of all commercially produced milk can be guaranteed rBGH free.

On the score of “fair trade,” Starbucks points out its recent April 2000 alliance with TransFair USA to promote fair trade brews and beans, plus its partnership with Conservation International to help better the lives of those who grow coffee in its natural, better known as “shade-grown,” environment. Going the extra mile, Starbucks’ letter also outlined its mission to make sure coffee growers are treated fairly through a special “Framework for Action” that includes special programs for farm families, educational opportunities for Costa Rican and Panamanian children, and the construction of a health clinic in East Timor.

“Starbucks takes seriously its commitment to the communities it serves both here in the United States and throughout the world, and is dedicated to continuing our role as a responsible and caring corporate citizen in all the regions and countries we touch,” the corporate letter states.

Indeed, in-store brochures at Salt Lake City Starbucks locations tell the story of Santiago Rivera, a northern Nicaraguan coffee farmer who bettered the life and future of his family after selling his crop to a co-op aligned with TransFair USA.

To that, Ronnie Cummins of the Organic Consumers Association says, “Nice talk, but where’s the walk?” At issue is the allegation that the mammoth Starbucks doesn’t do enough to promote and regularly brew its “fair trade” brand of beans. If it did, the company would be buying a lot more coffee benefiting the people who grow it.

“If that kind of coffee is only one percent of your sales, there aren’t a whole lot of Santiagos [Rivera] out there. Although,” Cummins says with a chuckle, “there are a lot of those brochures out there. That’s greenwashing, not social responsibility.”

What’s essentially being argued, though, is that Starbucks should go against America’s long-standing love affair with market forces. Fair trade coffee typically sells for $1.62 per pound. Cummins said Starbucks buys the vast majority of its coffee at this year’s prevailing price of 62 cents per pound. It all comes down to ethics, basically.

“It’s not ethically right to exploit a large group of 25 million farmers in the world, 20 million of which are low income,” Cummins said. “It’s not right to exploit these people so they can pay one of their CEOs $60,000 per week. They don’t need the money. An average family in Guatemala working on a coffee plantation makes $1.25 per day.”

And Cummins shrugs off the Utah Dairy Council’s assertion that the injection of rBGH into cows simply adds more of a hormone that already exists in the animal. “How did Monsanto [the company that makes rBGH] get a patent on it if it’s the same chemical already in the cow?” Cummins asks. “They genetically manipulated the normal DNA chain in the hormone, then reinject it into the cow. The cow’s getting a dose that’s biologically different from what their own bodies produce. And why is it that every industrialized nation except the U.S. has banned its use?”

Whether or not Starbucks will yet enter the exalted status of loathing now granted to corporations such as McDonald’s and Nike is an open question. So, too, is the matter of whether or not the coffee giant’s many customers can muster enough concern between sips of their favorite blend. Jim Hogle, who cradled his cup of Starbucks inside the store targeted for the small protest, admitted he didn’t have enough interest to carefully consider questions raised in the Organic Consumers Association pamphlet.

“I gave it a quick read,” the semi-retired Hogle said. “It really seems peculiar to me that there are people who would spend their time worrying about coffee beans. It’s something I really didn’t have the energy to dwell on.”

Outside the coffee shop, protester Jensen wondered why Salt Lake City police would focus their energy on his small campaign to better the lives of coffee workers and get rBGH out of dairy products. It’s nice that the detectives were friendly, though. Filming the protest across the street, one even waved to them.

“Civic participation is at such an all-time low in this country that when people do something or stand up for something it’s like a complete shock to the system, I suppose,” Jensen said.