Bentley Fair Trade advocates for ethical business models

Bentley alumni are committed to fair trade

Allison Myers ’93, director of marketing and customer experience for Champlain Chocolates, has been with the company since graduating from Bentley. In the year In the late 1990s, she led efforts to obtain fair trade certification for the company’s first group of products, a line of chocolate mixes.

“It’s been very rewarding to see the progress the fair trade movement has made over the last 25+ years,” says Myers. “A few years ago, I was able to visit our cocoa farmers in the Dominican Republic and see first-hand the community development projects they have undertaken. I visited a school and community center that hosts a technology class and saw the benefits of clean drinking water sources.

As Del’s Coffee Roasters founder Paul Delmonico ’92 offered coffee samples to fair attendees, he shared the story behind the business model.

“I started the company in 2020 out of my passion for specialty coffee and roasting specialty coffee beans from around the world,” he said. “As the business grew, I realized it was important to make sure the beans I roasted were from certified fair trade and organic farms while roasting full-time at my facility in Waltham.”

Most of the farms and communities that produce specialty coffee around the world, he says, rely on hardworking individuals to hand-pick, sort and process the coffee. “While this work is physically taxing and labor-intensive, Fair Trade certification means that these individuals are meeting their basic needs and ensuring and supporting a dignified existence.”

According to Jonathan White, BSLCE Director and Associate Professor of Sociology, approximately 10% of the world’s population, or 770 million people, live on less than $1.90 a day. “People are living in abject poverty, their life expectancy is decreasing and many are dying of hunger and hunger-related diseases. So when we say that a company has decided to pay its employees right, we are showing that it is changing lives now, and perhaps giving hope to the next generation.