One of the UK’s largest non-governmental organizations is to set up a fair trade coffee business in partnership with the coffee buying company Matthew Algie.
Oxfam plans to open three shops under the brand name Progreso, in existing retailer outlets, by the end of 2004, and to have built a chain of 20 within three years. The outlets will sell coffee from three co-operatives in Ethiopia, Honduras, and Indonesia, which together will have a 25 per cent share of the new business.
A further 25 per cent will be held in trust to generate money for projects to help coffee growers, while Oxfam will own the remaining 50 per cent. Oxfam and Matthew Algie are each providing initial funding of £50,000 ($88,500).
Oxfam was one of the joint founders in 1991 of what is now the UK’s largest fair trade hot drinks firm, Cafedirect.
Glasgow-based Matthew Algie, which has an 18 per cent market share of the UK’s fair trade coffee supply, expects to quadruple its supply of fair trade coffee in a year, partly as a result of the new venture.