Coffee News Roundup

Coffee News Roundup: Week Ending March 11th

Fionn Pooler

12 Mar 2022 — 14 min read

Two hands cradle a coffee cup with latte art, resting on a folded newspaper. Via Pixabay.

Hello and welcome to another Coffee News Roundup.

Let’s see what’s being going on this week.

Coffee Industry Braces for More Supply Chain ‘Chaos’ as Oil Soars - via Bloomberg

After worker shortages, blockades, lack of containers, and an increase in transportation costs, comes oil. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused the price of oil to surge, creating yet another headache for coffee exporters and transportation companies.

“It’s going get more painful with surging energy costs,” said Thomas Hartley of Hartley Transportation, at a recent event hosted by the National Coffee Association. Hartley called coffee’s current logistical state “chaotic”, which doesn’t bode well.

This comes on the back of recent news that Brazil—the world’s largest coffee producer—had another slow month, with exports falling 13.6% in February according to exporter group Cecafe.

Plus, another knock-on effect of the war in Ukraine is that, with Russia and Belarus being two of the biggest exporters of potash and other soil nutrients, and Brazil importing 80% of its fertilizer, the ongoing conflict could impact Brazilian producers’ ability to secure fertilizer—this has apparently also been a factor in recent coffee price rises.

Read the full story here.

Starbucks Workers at 3 More Buffalo-Area Stores Vote to Unionize - via New York Times

Three more successful votes in Buffalo, New York, brings the total number of unionized Starbucks in the United States to six—one in Arizona and five in Buffalo. Just 8,994 to go!

These latest victories, although not as resounding (the stores voted 8 to 7, 15 to 12, and 15 to 12), add extra momentum to the now-nationwide movement to organize the coffee behemoth. “Workers in cities including Seattle, Boston, Rochester, N.Y., and Knoxville, Tenn., have begun voting or will do so this month,” says the New York Times.

Amazingly, one of the stores that voted to unionize, Walden & Anderson, was closed for two months and turned into a training facility, with workers moved around to other locations. Organizers weren’t able to reach individual baristas during this time, but even with communication lines down and numerous new hires added in the intervening period, the store still voted in favour of joining the union.

Read the full story here.

Starbucks is Asking its Shareholders to Vote Against Anti-Discrimination and Harassment Measures - via Nation’s Restaurant News

Meanwhile, Starbucks is asking shareholders to vote against a proposal that would require the company to release annual reports on harassment and discrimination in the workplace.

The shareholder-introduced proposal, which is up for vote at next week’s shareholders’ meeting, would require annual reports “describing and quantifying the effectiveness and outcomes of company efforts to prevent harassment and discrimination” against employees on the basis of sex, race, religion, national origin, age, disability, gender identity and sexual orientation.

Reports would also need to disclose “the number of harassment and discrimination suits settled by the company, the average length of time it takes to settle harassment complaints, and whether Starbucks uses nondisclosure or mandatory arbitration to settle its employee complaints.”

Starbucks doesn’t think that’s necessary. It thinks it already does enough, because it holds workplace trainings and has an anonymous helpline to report harassment or discrimination. It also says that employees aren’t subject to nondisclosure agreements, and that because of all this, and “the board’s ongoing oversight”, a public report “is unnecessary and will not benefit our shareholders or our partners.”

SBWorkersUnited isn’t convinced. "Harassment and discrimination are issues that many partners experience,” the union told Nation’s Restaurant News, “and transparency around these problems is a necessary step toward systemic change. We are disappointed that Starbucks is also resisting this attempt to hold them accountable."

Read the full story here.

More Headlines

SCA Announces 2022 Sustainability Award Winners

Breville to Acquire Italian Espresso Machine Maker Lelit for $124 Million

McDonald’s, Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Pepsi suspend Russian operations

Westrock and S&D Unify and Refresh Brand Under Westrock Coffee Name

The Global Coffee Community Steps Up To Support Ukraine

Starbucks Fights Unionization Effort By Hiring Pinkertons To Order Exhausting, Hyper-Specific Drinks

The Week in Coffee Unionizing

A small but instructive demonstration of the difficulties involved in unionizing within the coffee industry, which played out over four days.

Three Brothers Coffee May Become First Union Shop in Town reads the first headline, referring to a cafe in Nashville, Tennessee, whose baristas asked the ownership to voluntarily recognize their union. They want respect, commitment, and higher wages in an industry that sorely lacks all three.

“There’s a lack of respect for service industry workers and we’re treated as transient, like props, instead of valuable members of the business,” barista Paige Lemon said. “That’s the way the system is set up, and we are trying to suggest maybe that’s not the only way.

Four days later:

Union Organizers Get Pushback From Three Brothers Coffee Owners. Instead of voluntarily recognizing the union, Three Brothers part-owner TJ Wilt Jr. sent an email to workers requesting/demanding a meeting—“We will not be opening the shop again until this meeting occurs”—but then cancelled it upon learning that a union rep would be present.

Wilt Jr. didn’t reply to requests for comment by the Tennessee Lookout—”despite email tracking software showing the message had been opened multiple times”—but union organizers say that they have a supermajority and will win an election if it comes down to it.

Is Coffee Good For You?

Although previous research has suggested that coffee might be a trigger for migraines, a new study published in Frontiers in Genetics has found no causal relationship between coffee consumption and risk for migraines—in European populations, at least.

The researchers looked at over 375,000 participants aged 37–73 from the UK Biobank, and noted their self-reported coffee consumption. Then, using some statistical wizadry that I don’t understand (it’s called two-sample Mendelian randomization analysis, if you’re interested) they tried to find out if there was a link between coffee consumption and migraines. And… there wasn’t.

“Coffee consumption is likely not a trigger nor a prevention strategy for migraine headaches,” the authors write. So there’s that.