Great breakdown of how a single quote gets spun into wild narratives. The way the coffee comment exploded across conspiracy channels shows just how fast misinformation travels — especially when it feeds into already existing fears. Honestly, it made me think about how everyday items like coffee or even burgers carry bigger environmental conversations.
I was recently browsing https://5guyzmenu.com/ and it struck me how deeply food culture connects to larger issues like sustainability and climate. It’s not about banning things — it’s about being more aware of the impact, without falling into panic or paranoia.
In coffee-price statistic above you see how exploitation works. Go to the diagram and see the coffee-prices in cents right hand. Then draw a horizontal line at 140 cent. This is the FairTrade minimum price. All worldmarket future-prices below this line (most of time) is desastrous for coffee-farmers. It is also the reason why farmers from many coffee-regions in South-America are now waiting at the big wall to the US as refugees. Unfortunately they are seeking their hope in just that country that generates the most profits from coffee. The country of Starbucks. Maybe some of them will become a dishwasher in a Starbucks kitchen. A bullshit job poorly payed with coffee, harvested by their relatives who are still in Guatemala, Honduras, Columbia....
The value of coffee-sales mostly in Global North as cited above is much more than 200 bn or 250 bn Dollar. You have to add the revenue with coffee-to-go and coffee-RTD, which means Ready-to-Drink, mostly in cooled alu-bottles. According to STATISTA, the only valuable source for this data, you come at the end to 455 bn Dollar (2022). In coffee producer countries they get only 19 bn $ from this big amount - this is 4,1%. The example above is different. If you calculate the portion for the producer-farmer related to one cup of coffee, it is much less. Clearly! Because coffee brewed-sales are more valuable. This is the Starbucks mystery. STATISTA (for 2023) shows that quantity of coffee for at home is 6,2bn kg and for Out-of-Home is only 1,3 bn kg. But most revenue (around 80%) is generated from this smaller 1,3 bn kg. Thats the background for coffee-statistics. My data source here (sometimes behind paywall-sorry):
I never use Our World in Data unless some higher-quality source corroborates the info. Number one problem - too many humans. Number 2 problem - excess and inequality of consumption, such that rich nations need medications to alleviate obesity while other peoples starve. Contrary to Monbiot, who would have all pasture-land resort to rewilding with imaginary European elephants, grazing, properly done with respect to the health of the grasslands rather than the numbers of animals involved, is actually a good system to convert plants that you cannot eat into digestible protein see https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/whats-for-dinner Again, we read about bankers “putting a rice on Nature” at the WEF, the end-game of which is that any piece of Nature can be sold off if the price is right. Nature is not a “asset” that can appreciate the value of money “invested” in it - if you pour money out on land and see an increase in your holdings, you had best reconsider what your currency peg was, since perchance it was your currency which devalued?
Great breakdown of how a single quote gets spun into wild narratives. The way the coffee comment exploded across conspiracy channels shows just how fast misinformation travels — especially when it feeds into already existing fears. Honestly, it made me think about how everyday items like coffee or even burgers carry bigger environmental conversations.
I was recently browsing https://5guyzmenu.com/ and it struck me how deeply food culture connects to larger issues like sustainability and climate. It’s not about banning things — it’s about being more aware of the impact, without falling into panic or paranoia.
In coffee-price statistic above you see how exploitation works. Go to the diagram and see the coffee-prices in cents right hand. Then draw a horizontal line at 140 cent. This is the FairTrade minimum price. All worldmarket future-prices below this line (most of time) is desastrous for coffee-farmers. It is also the reason why farmers from many coffee-regions in South-America are now waiting at the big wall to the US as refugees. Unfortunately they are seeking their hope in just that country that generates the most profits from coffee. The country of Starbucks. Maybe some of them will become a dishwasher in a Starbucks kitchen. A bullshit job poorly payed with coffee, harvested by their relatives who are still in Guatemala, Honduras, Columbia....
The value of coffee-sales mostly in Global North as cited above is much more than 200 bn or 250 bn Dollar. You have to add the revenue with coffee-to-go and coffee-RTD, which means Ready-to-Drink, mostly in cooled alu-bottles. According to STATISTA, the only valuable source for this data, you come at the end to 455 bn Dollar (2022). In coffee producer countries they get only 19 bn $ from this big amount - this is 4,1%. The example above is different. If you calculate the portion for the producer-farmer related to one cup of coffee, it is much less. Clearly! Because coffee brewed-sales are more valuable. This is the Starbucks mystery. STATISTA (for 2023) shows that quantity of coffee for at home is 6,2bn kg and for Out-of-Home is only 1,3 bn kg. But most revenue (around 80%) is generated from this smaller 1,3 bn kg. Thats the background for coffee-statistics. My data source here (sometimes behind paywall-sorry):
https://www.statista.com/outlook/cmo/hot-drinks/coffee/worldwide
The data for RTD is little bit older from 2019 here: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/industry-reports/ready-to-drink-rtd-coffee-market-100285. RTD-data is not given by STATISTA.
I never use Our World in Data unless some higher-quality source corroborates the info. Number one problem - too many humans. Number 2 problem - excess and inequality of consumption, such that rich nations need medications to alleviate obesity while other peoples starve. Contrary to Monbiot, who would have all pasture-land resort to rewilding with imaginary European elephants, grazing, properly done with respect to the health of the grasslands rather than the numbers of animals involved, is actually a good system to convert plants that you cannot eat into digestible protein see https://kathleenmccroskey.substack.com/p/whats-for-dinner Again, we read about bankers “putting a rice on Nature” at the WEF, the end-game of which is that any piece of Nature can be sold off if the price is right. Nature is not a “asset” that can appreciate the value of money “invested” in it - if you pour money out on land and see an increase in your holdings, you had best reconsider what your currency peg was, since perchance it was your currency which devalued?