Loro Piana got caught being evil and the world pretended to care for a few days. When you Google the brand now, the story is buried under a bunch of articles about “quiet luxury”, the Hamptons, and Yacht races. Like literally, i’m not being funny, those are the actual articles that come up... Anyway, here’s what happened:
“A Bloomberg report by Marcelo Rochabrú revealed that the luxury fashion house is using unpaid labor to produce vicuña sweaters that retail for approximately $9,000. The Indigenous community of Lucanas that supplies the wool receives only $280 for the equivalent amount of fiber, leaving laborers that herd and shear the wool to work for free.
In an additional Bloomberg Original video, Rochabrún describes vicuñas, who are camelids that are native to the Andes of Peru, as having the finest, rarest, and most expensive wool in the world. They are the smallest of camelids and relatives of llamas.
While the trade of vicuña wool was outlawed in 1969, an international treaty reinstated a legal market, so long as the income derived from the fiber would directly benefit the Indigenous Andes community. However, a 2018 survey found that 80% of those living in the Indigenous community said that they did not benefit from participation in the trade and their living conditions are not improving.” (source)
This whole saga has really made me reflect on my time in coffee and what it’s meant to me to work in a producing country and why we as consumers are so complacent about exploitation.
We took the picture above in a coffee-producing village in Bani Ismail, Yemen. It’s one of the most prized coffee regions, where some of the highest-grown coffee in the world is cultivated. I had to find out the hard way the heartbreaking reality that most farmers in producing countries rarely if ever get to taste the fruits of their labor. Most vanilla farmers will never taste Ben & Jerry's, most cacao pickers will never taste their own chocolate bars, and most coffee farmers will never have a latte or pour-over brewed with their coffee.
I decided, at least within my limited capacity and with the farmers I work with, to change that. I did an entire presentation where we took the farmers on a journey, showing them the path their coffee travels. From their farms to the end users in specialty coffee shops. I brought along my portable MSR gas stove, swan neck kettle, Porlex hand grinder, and Hario scale, and we set up a little coffee lab right there in the village. We had three samples of freshly roasted coffee: a Sumatran, an Ethiopian, and their very own Ismaili coffee.
We did a blind tasting, where the farmers didn’t know which coffee was theirs. They all tasted and discussed the different flavors, and when I asked them which one they liked best, they all chose the same one. You should have seen their faces when I revealed it was their coffee. The joy and pride were indescribable. Even the oldest farmer, who we thought might be grumpy about the whole thing, was super enthusiastic and turned out to be the best taster among them.
The point here is the chasm. It’s not as wide as we’re made to believe. Do you know why every time you see people from producing countries depicted in media they’re exotified? They wear big hats and colorful dresses, their faces have deep dark wrinkles, their hands rough, dirty, and calloused, they ride donkeys and have dozens of children, they’re completely and totally different in every way from people living in the developed world. But that’s the thing they’re not. For once I just want someone to ask a farmer what their favorite movie is instead of hearing them talk again and again about how noble and rewarding picking fruit is. And that’s not to say it isn’t, it’s just to say that, look, we’re fed these narratives about these people because it implicitly communicates to us that they’re supposed to be poor. They’re supposed to be exploited. It’s their natural place in the world.
So yeah, why did everyone hate Loro Piana for a grand total of three days? Because when the news came out no one was really surprised. Loro Piana’s behavior is not the exception, it’s the rule.
It’s time for consumers to start demanding transparency. Complete transparency. Don’t just seek out brands that have a higher order of values. Demand from existing brands that they shape up or ship out.
And quick note here, not to pat ourselves on the back but this is one area where specialty coffee stands out. Our industry really cares about transparency in the supply chain. While there’s still plenty of work to be done, we’ve made significant strides in ensuring that producers are recognized and fairly compensated and i’m incredibly proud to be part of a movement that prioritizes these values.
But building stronger bridges between producers and consumers isn’t just about fairness; it’s about creating a deeper understanding and appreciation for our shared humanity. The moment those Yemeni farmers tasted their own coffee for the first time was a powerful moment for me and one i’ll never forget. Because in that moment I understood that the only real way forward is ensuring that the people behind the product are seen, heard, valued, and honored. This is what i’ve dedicated my life to, it’s the hill i’m willing to die on. But, i’m definitely hoping you all will climb up that hill with me for a cup of coffee first.
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