Just Coffee left the FLO/TransFair USA certification system in 2004. At that time we felt that they were moving in a direction that did not represent what our business model hoped to achieve. In particular we had a difficult time giving our money to, and using the label of, an organization that made no differentiation between mission-driven fair trade companies and corporations that were committed to fair trade at a minimal level. As many of you all know, after a year or so of “conversation” with TFUSA, we decided to leave fair trade certification.

Over the years we have grappled with the idea of certification and our opinion of FT certification in general was heavily influenced by our bad experience with TFUSA. Since then at JC there has not been a uniform opinion on the value of certification. Some of us have come to the conclusion that certification was at best a substitute for transparency and at worst another layer of “new coyotes” who added expense, but little value, to our business. Others at JC have felt that certification adds credibility to our practices and, like organic certification, can be a good way to give confidence to an already over-burdened consumer who is faced with differentiating products and companies in their busy lives. Following this line of thought, if a fair trade certification that better represented JC’s business ever cropped up, it would be good for us to consider it as an option.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the interesting situation that has developed with the entry of organic certifying pioneer IMO entering the fair trade certification scene. Following up on that, I have had a couple of conversations with the folks from IMO and also listened to both the TransFair USA 101 podcast and the IMO 101 podcast put on by the Fair Trade Resource Network. Below I’ll give a brief outline of what I learned listening to these and follow those up with some thoughts.