Yeah, we still lack a load of information to decide whether one roaster is supposedly dishonest from another.
I don't understand this thread at all.
Pricing a bag of coffee higher than a competitor is neither dishonest nor unethical. It's very simple - if you think it's too expensive, don't buy it.
Maybe their costs are higher, for whatever reason. Maybe they want higher margins, for whatever reason. Regardless, it's their choice how to price it. And it's up to you to decide whether to buy it. Honesty and ethics are not involved on either side of this.
In order to become unethical they would need to have done something like lace it with drugs, sell it cheap, then jacked up the price.
This is the problem with using the free market to dictate healthcare terms by the way, but nothing wrong with a roaster trying to make a few bucks.
I think everyone has made their point and now we're trending towards dogmatic/repetitive replies (see the site's Guidelines for productive online discussion, specifically "Encourage positive, shared discourse"). Let's move along. Thanks.
I read over some of the responses on this thread, and agree that the easy answer would be to buy from a "cheaper" roaster-but the problem remains that roasters that are hijacking prices are the source of many issues, beyond how much we pay for coffee. If you want to look at the issue selfishly, if farmers continue to suffer these financial problems, the product they offer (green coffee) would no longer be available on the market- and we would be progressively losing the option of purchasing good, fair-priced coffee. This is of course beyond what I am really upset about- the fact that farmers are placed in this awful position because of some greedy roasters.
Mark, I would be interested in learning more about the "the root causes of this imbalance in the coffee value chain" mentioned in the article. Do you know what they are (or have any suggestion about where I can find something I can read)?
Go green! If you have the time and interest you can buy a wide variety of green coffee beans for ~$7/lb. and roast them yourself. Decent roasters can be had for $3-600.