One of the most commonly overlooked ethics of fair trade is transparency. We at JC are committed to it and in order to show this we have posted(see bottom of this page) our Profit and Loss statements since 2002-- our first year of business. To summarize the P&Ls, we have grown quickly and shown a slight loss or slight profit every year. Our accountant would call us a textbook "break even" company. The important thing for us-- as a worker cooperative-- is to provide a decent income stream to all people who work at our co-op as well as to the growers that we work with. In this we have been fairly successful. The purpose of this exercise is to show you exactly what we are doing with our company. This is why we post our contracts with the growers we buy from as well as all of the transaction documentation for getting the coffee from the farmers to us. Please feel free to check them out here or in the sidebar called "The Transparency Project". There are 4 types of documents featured in this section: Contracts (CON), Invoices (INV), Bills of Lading (BOL), and Organic Certifications (ORG). These can be a little confusing, so here is a brief run-down of what they are all about.

1) Contracts: The contract is signed between our importing co-op (Cooperative Coffees) and the grower cooperatives. It features Quality, Quantity, Price, Weight, Payment Terms, Insurance Coverage, Port of Shipping, Destination of coffee, and any special instructions or comments. The price section features all of the various organic and fair trade premiums. These can be hard to decipher, but it is cool to see how they break down.

2) Invoices: This is the invoice issued by the Grower Cooperative for the coffee purchase. This document includes quantity, quality stipulations, total price per pound, and total price for the contract as well as some of the same info available in the contract.

3) Bill of Lading: This document is issued by the sea freight company carrying the coffee to the US. It includes some of the info on the other 2 documents, but also the total cost for shipping.

4) Organic Certification: This document is issued by the organic certifier at origin to confirm that USDA NOP orgainc standards have been met in production.  In contracts the country of origin of the coffees we are roasting are indicated by the first letter of the code. For example MEV is from Mexico. COO is Colombian. Generally, the newest contracts are toward the bottom of each of these pages.

We are registered with the Small Producer Symbol-- the only fair trade certification owned by small-scale farmers in the global south and the only one that guarantees your product has come from small-scale farmers and their co-ops. We feel that certification can augment transparency, but does not replace it as the highest standard. We ask you to look at what we do, think about it, and then judge for yourself whether it meets your standards. Don't let other people tell you what is fair. In the end it puts another layer between you and the people that make and grow the things that you use in your daily life. And if you like what you see and the premise behind it, ask other companies to show you their books.

Please let us know if you have any questions or feedback.