• by Manuel Manonelles
• Tuesday, November 29, 2011
• Inter Press Service

Coffee aficionados say that one of the finest cafes in the world is Rome's Sant'Eustacchio, located in the city's historic centre. Since 1938 it has been the site of coffee pilgrimages and a must for the most ardent espresso devotees, writes Manuel Manonelles, director of the Foundation for the Culture of Peace, Barcelona.

But what no visitor to this Mecca of caffeine addicts expects to find out is that all of the coffee served there, thousands and thousands every week, is fair trade coffee obtained through the Italian organisation Altromercato, a long-time pioneer in the fair trade movement. It is through this group that Sant'Eustachio obtains the very best beans produced in Brazil, Ethiopia, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, the Galapagos islands, or Saint Helena.

The example of this prestigious cafe overturns certain misconceptions and serves as a paradigm and a model. It shows without a doubt that in contrast to what the various "market" gurus proclaim night and day, quality, commercial success, and social justice are not only entirely compatible; together they can produce results of the very highest order, including commercial. We live in times of economic and financial turbulence in which we respond by blindly applying the same formulas that lead us to this crisis in the first place.

(*) Manuel Manonelles is the director of the Foundation for the Culture of Peace, Barcelona.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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