| dc.description.abstract | Consumers pay a premium for Fair Trade coffee, often assuming that it mainly benefits poor
coffee farmers. However, several studies report that most of the premium accrues to actors
in the consumer countries, such as roasters and retailers. This paper analyses how the
returns to Fair Trade are distributed among bean producer countries, roasters and retailers,
and Fairtrade Sweden, using scanner data on 185 products from Sweden and information
about costs of production. The distribution depends on how much more costly it is to
produce Fair Trade coffee compared to conventional coffee, given costs of beans and
licences. Assuming the difference is 5 SEK per kg (about USD 0.80), which is on the high side,
roasters and retailers get 61%, while producer countries, i.e., coffee farmers, cooperatives,
middlemen, exporters and Fairtrade International, get 31%. The rest accrues to Fairtrade
Sweden. These estimates are uncertain, but there is there strong evidence that Fair Trade
retail prices are higher than the level attributable to the costs of Fair Trade beans and
licences. | sv |
