Fair Vodka a Toast to Fair Trade

Jasna Hodzic / The Chronicle
Paul Rice's TransFair USA in Oakland recently licensed Fair Vodka.

For more than a decade, fair trade coffee beans have helped conscientious consumers feel good about supporting ethical labor practices while savoring their morning blends. In recent years, fair trade fruit, chocolate and wine joined the party. And now, compassionate Californians can even enjoy a fair trade happy hour, with fair trade vodka making its U.S. premiere.

TransFair USA, the Oakland nonprofit that certifies all the nation's fair trade products, recently licensed Fair Vodka, the first product in a fair trade line of spirits, and now the $35 bottles are popping up in Bay Area stores and restaurants.

"When you drink this vodka, you are helping Bolivian farmers earn a living wage and have enough left over to invest in their communities," said Jean-Francois Daniel, co-founder of the 2-year-old Fair Trade Spirits Company based in Paris. "When we buy their products, we're not giving them charity, we're just making sure they can sell their crops at a decent price."

Daniel's company was a good candidate for TransFair certification, and not only because of his passion for fair trade. His life story shares many parallels with that of Paul Rice, TransFair USA's founder and CEO.

Both men first encountered fair trade cooperatives while traveling in South America in their 20s - and both were traveling because they were disillusioned with their previous jobs. Rice bought a one-way ticket to Nicaragua after graduating college in 1983 and spent several months working on charity projects that he felt were merely creating a dependency on foreign aid.

Daniel, then 25, quit his job selling cognac in New York in 2007 because "at the end of the day, my life was about how much money I was making for the company." He started traveling by bus, train and even hitchhiking through 30 countries in Asia, South America and India.
A calling

Rice found his calling when he learned about the success of fair trade coffee in Europe and decided to organize a co-op of small coffee farmers in Nicaragua. It was difficult to persuade farmers to join him at first, but he managed to gather 24 "brave souls" who each gave him 10 bags of coffee on consignment. It sold for $1.26 per pound and $1 went to the farmers, who were used to receiving only 10 cents per pound.

"They started calling me Pablo un dolar," Rice said. "It was the most powerful thing these families had ever seen. My co-op went from 24 farmers to 3,000, and they were able to start paying off loans, and invest in clean water and schools. I realized small farmers don't have to be the victims of globalization."

Daniel had a similar realization when he met fair trade quinoa farmers in Chile. While traveling, he also met his business partner Alex Koiransky, another Frenchman working in the American alcohol industry who was dissatisfied with his work. They returned to France and founded the Fair Trade Spirits Company, dedicated to using fair trade ingredients. They make Fair Vodka from quinoa, a grain grown by an association of 1,200 small, TransFair-certified farmers in the Bolivian Highlands.

To become fair trade certified, the farmers agreed to abide by certain fair labor, production and environmental standards. They must also invest a percentage of their collective income into their communities - helping to fund schools and hospitals and build village infrastructure like transportation and access to clean water. In exchange, buyers agree to purchase their crops for a price that is always higher than conventional market prices.

TransFair USA, in conjunction with Fairtrade Labeling Organizations, an international organization headquartered in Bonn, Germany, audits the activities of fair trade producers, manufacturers and importers to ensure they uphold their certification agreements. Together, the two organizations track fair trade commodities from farms to finished products.

According to Daniel, the daily wage for a non-fair-trade quinoa farmer in Bolivia is $1 per day, but the fair trade quinoa farmers his company works with earn $2.80 per day.

Although his company guarantees higher wages for small farmers, Daniel said he could barely afford to pay himself when the Fair Trade Spirits Company began.

"At first, we were eating pasta every day. We had no money and no business plan," he said. "It was a lot of work."
Hard work

After 11 years working with his coffee co-op in Nicaragua, Rice also returned to his Bay Area home. He founded TransFair USA in 1998 with a $100,000 grant, working out of an abandoned Oakland warehouse with furniture he purchased from college students moving out of dorms. He did not take a salary the first two years.

Eventually TransFair did create a market for fair trade coffee in the United States. Then, they followed the lead of fair trade certifiers in Europe by adding fruit, tea and chocolate to the mix. Today, there are more than 6,000 fair trade products available in the United States.

"Now, in every aisle of the grocery store, you can find products that make a difference," Rice said. "I was at a reception in Boston recently, and they were making cosmos with Fair Vodka."

But Fair isn't stopping with vodka. There's also Fair Goji, a goji berry liqueur made with fair trade sugar from the African nation of Malawi. In September, consumers can look for Fair Café, a coffee liqueur made with fair trade coffee from Mexico. A fair trade rum is said to be in development.

Amanda Womack is the general manager of Cask, the first San Francisco retailer to carry Fair Vodka. She sells it in her store at 17 Third St. and features it on Cask's website, where she accepts online orders. Even at $35 per bottle, Fair is one of the less-expensive vodkas Cask sells, despite being fair trade.

"I got really excited when I learned what Fair was doing, and I wanted to support it," Womack said. "I loved the story of their production process, and I got behind it right away."

In the first two weeks Cask had Fair Vodka on its shelves, Womack said she made a handful of sales.

"All of the sales happened after I told customers who were looking for vodka about the Fair story," she said. "The vodka tastes great, too, so the taste and the story are complementary."
Fair trade fast facts

Coffee was the first fair trade-certified product in the United States and still represents 80 percent of the country's fair trade commodities.

There are more than 6,000 fair trade products available in 105 product categories, including wine, fruit, chocolate, rice, flowers and garments.

In October, TransFair will premiere the first fair trade apparel using cotton from India and West Africa.

E-mail us at datebookletterssfchronicle [dot] com.

This article appeared on page E - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle