Starbucks has a long history of creating initiatives to help coffee producers and coffee farming communities. We are now calling on the company to release a transparency report detailing the per pound prices they pay for the the coffees they purchase around the world.

Transparency reports are widely used in the coffee industry, with companies large and small annually self-reporting what they paid for coffee the past year. Transparency reports are one of the industry’s best tools in ensuring farmers are paid equitably for their work, not exploited by coffee’s historically colonialist structure. In a time when the C-market price is hovering around $1 per pound and farmers are often paid below the cost of production, transparency reports help ensure fair and equitable trading practices.

As the purchaser of up to 3% of the world’s coffee annually, Starbucks is an industry leader. They claim their coffees are “ethically sourced” and create highly publicized initiatives to benefit those at farm level. To prove that these are more than just marketing claims, we are asking Starbucks to release a transparency report. Price transparency, especially at scale, is a critical step in bring much-needed change to the coffee price crisis. The future of coffee is at stake.