A Brief Look At Tim Hortons' South American Initiatives

To continue our examination of Tim Hortons, we will turn to its international development efforts in South America.

In 2005, Tim Hortons launched its first community partnership program in Guatemala. Since then the company has started projects in Columbia and Brazil. In Guatemala and Brazil they have helped support new farmer organizations, while in Columbia they have helped strengthen existing farmer committees as members of the National Coffee Federation. According to the Tim Hortons web site, these organizations are important to the success of coffee farmers.

The organizations are said to provide economies of scale in agricultural inputs (the goods and services that go into the production of coffee), more efficient warehousing and better cooperation with the export companies.

All these efforts are said to allow the growers of coffee a better yield and grade of the crop and other benefits as well.

In their web site, however, Tim Hortons makes no assertions that they support fair trade and organically grown coffee. They also provide no dollar figures as to how much the farmers have actually earned as a result of the new programs.