If you're like most Americans, you may have started your day with a cup of coffee. According to the National Coffee Association, it's more popular than any other beverage with 67% of adults drinking coffee in the past day.

What You Need To Know

  • Fair Trade USA works with companies to source their products from co-ops throughout the country

  • They ensure farms producing the product are paying and treating their farmers properly

  • Death Wish Coffee is the top-selling fair trade brand in the U.S., according to sales data from SPINS MULO

With so many coffee drinkers relying on their caffeine buzz to begin their day, making conscious choices isn't always top of mind. But, for many consumers, Death Wish Coffee has made the conscious choice the most obvious one.

"We think fair trade is so important for every coffee consumer to know about, but we do find that a lot of people see the logo, but they really don't know what it means," said Shannon Sweeney, marketing director of Death Wish Coffee.

Death Wish Coffee was founded in 2012 in Saratoga Springs. Now, their products are sold across the country. From the beginning, it was important to the founders to put people and planet first.

They are the top-selling fair trade brand in the U.S., according to sales data from SPINS MULO.

"It's important as a consumer to know, when you go out and you see something that is fair trade, it means that it's gone through an extensive amount of standards to make sure that it's a high-quality product on shelf," said Sweeney.

Death Wish works with Fair Trade USA to source their coffee from co-ops throughout the country. Fair Trade USA ensures the farms producing the product are paying and treating their farmers properly.

"In reality, we have a global crisis going on," said Fair Trade USA's head of coffee Clay Dockery. "Climate change has impacted farming communities across the globe, and while we're seeing that manifest itself through higher prices, which are not necessarily truly benefiting the industry. So we are in a crisis moment and without reinvestment in these communities around the globe that produce coffee, we're going to continue to see higher and higher prices as the crop yields become lower on the basis of these climate challenges."

But it's a tall order connecting the dots for consumers from their kitchen to the supermarket to the company to the farm producing the product, often thousands of miles away.

"There's no question that we have seen tremendous inflation in the consumer products industry, products that consumers are buying every day and while inflation has been a very difficult reality, costs have also been going up worldwide," said Dockery. "Without farmer profit or the business, opportunities are going to struggle, we're going to see less crop yields and that's going to continue to drive prices up. So, without investment in producing countries, we're actually increasing the crisis rather than helping."

Death Wish Coffee recently moved the Fair Trade USA symbol to the front of all their packaging.

"We want consumers to feel good about the cup of coffee that they're putting into their bodies and the contribution that their dollar is making at a global scale," said Sweeney. "Their dollar is going directly toward these community development funds and helping farmers reinvest in their community so it really helps produce and sustain a very healthy and transparent supply chain."