22 November 2008
Fairer coffee coming to UoA
1 September 2006
By Justin Latif: Te Waha Nui Online
As consciences catch up with coffee drinkers, there is becoming a bigger movement for cafes to re-invent themselves as fair-trade outlets. Te Waha Nui showcases Australasia’s first fair-trade university.
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Photo: Helen Twose
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The University of Auckland is about to become the first “fair trade” university in Australasia.
Lucy Mitchell, a developmental studies honours student, has led the campaign to see all the university’s cafes and food outlets selling Fairtrade certified products.
The 20-year-old went to an Oxfam meeting and caught the vision of helping the Third World through changing the drinking habits of her campus colleagues.
Her campaign group now has 45 people on its mailing list and 20 people usually come to its weekly meeting.
Their first goal has been achieved with the students’ association about to pass a resolution committing the university to being fair trade.
The next step is to have all the cafes, bars and departments make fair-trade products available.
Robert Harris runs a large number of these outlets and it has agreed to start offering a fair trade option.
Relax café, located next to the university quad, changed over to selling Fairtrade certified coffee halfway through the year.
Ellen Chuang, manager of the café, has experienced no negative responses to the change.
“The students didn’t even know we’d changed,” she says.
Mitchell adds: “University students are discerning coffee drinkers and they haven’t complained at all about the difference.
“It’s a concept which is really taking off.”
