Direct Trade is a new industry term used to describe direct relationships that coffee roasters / retailers have with individual farmers and small scale coops.

In a true Direct Trade model, the green buyer for the roaster usually travels to and visits these farmers and coops one or more times per year. There is no middleman - no broker, no Fair Trade organization, no one but the farmers / coops and roasters doing the deal directly.

The result is a) farmers get paid a lot more, b) farmers produce a better product with input of green buyers in this biz relationship, c) consumers get better coffees.

We're lucky that Direct Trade is still very "true" in that pretty much all the roasters using the term are doing just that.

I've long been an advocate for roasters like Counter Culture, Intelligentsia, Stumptown, PTs Coffee, Coffee Klatsch, Ecco Coffee, Terroir, etc to band together and create a non profit, third party organizing body to properly manage, trademark, and adminster the "Direct Trade" program.

So far, there's been little interest. My two main fears are a) the "brand" will become diluted and meaningless when less-than-honest roasters, brokers, retailers start using the name to win brownie points with customers, and b) the brand, fragmented as it is right now across roasters, means different things to different roasters.

They need to move on this, before its too late. Instead you have one roaster laying claim to the brand, another also laying claim, and yet others just using the brand without caring what the roasters who claim ownership have to say.