Whenever you buy a cheap shirt from a store that says “Made in Vietnam”, in the back of your mind you know that it was made cheaply using cheap labor.
Unfortunately, we never think about that fact and if we do, we don’t give it a second thought.
Somebody working for incredibly cheap wages in a far away land is often too much for us to think about.
Rather, it’s easier NOT to think about it.
Unfortunately, it’s just the way our modern world is built; it’s too commonplace to really give second thought to.
That changed for us whenever we started Con Todo Coffee.
Whenever that worker that is typically unseen and forgotten about is standing right in front of you, you suddenly realize the importance of paying fair wages and running a business in not only a sustainable way, but in a way that is ethical.
The farmers that grow Con Todo Coffee aren’t just random people in a faraway place in some discreet factory.
Their names are Marcos, Macario, and Polo. And the fact is that they want many of the same things that you want in life. To provide for themselves and their families, to be free of suffering, to have a little free time every now and then, and to live a happy and joyful life.
The internet has completely dehumanized the shopping and buying process.
If you want something, you just click a button on Amazon and it arrives in a few hours! Little to no thought about who created your product is ever given.
One of the things we love about living in Mexico is the real human connections you forge through daily activities. Whenever you buy something for your home, there is a good chance you are going to speak to the person that made it. Every morning that you buy bread, you have the opportunity to speak to the baker that baked it. That is truly one the most beautiful things about living in Mexico.
Compare that experience with the experience of buying a loaf of sliced bread from the supermarket…or even a step further, having that loaf of bread show up on your doorstep with grocery delivery.
One of our goals with Con Todo Coffee is to re-humanize the shopping and buying process and to truly bring the best parts of Mexico into your lives.
Whenever big businesses cut corners and cut costs, it often comes at the expense of farmers, factory workers, and other hardworking people that they don’t want you to know even exist.
That’s bull sh•$.
At Con Todo Coffee, we do things differently.
Macario is front and center on our El Clásico bags for a reason.
Without him, we don’t exist.
Whenever we visit coffee farms we want to be able to look workers in the eye and know that they aren’t being slighted, tricked, or taken advantage of.
So the next time you buy that cheap shirt or you place an order on Amazon, we ask you to really stop and think about who made that product.
If it is being sold for a bargain, who is paying the price?
If not you, who?
