Certifications
Coffee Certifications
No certification marks are displayed on this site
Using a scheme’s mark requires a valid licence from the scheme owner, so none is shown here — including on this page. Where certification is contracted, we provide the certificates of every operator in the chain for your review, and the marking requirements are confirmed against the scheme’s current rules rather than copied from a previous shipment.
Certified lots may be available subject to origin, crop, certification status and current inventory.
Compared
What each scheme covers
They are not alternatives in a strict sense — many supply chains hold more than one, each serving a different customer requirement.
| Scheme | Primary focus | Price mechanism | Chain of custody |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organic | Permitted inputs and segregation | Market plus organic premium | Physical segregation, transaction certificates per shipment |
| Fairtrade | Minimum price and producer premium | Minimum price plus Fairtrade Premium | Segregated physical flow |
| Rainforest Alliance | Environment and human rights | Sustainability differential plus investment | Identity preserved, segregated or mass balance — state which |
| 4C | Baseline sustainability at volume | Market | Mass balance common at scale |
Schemes
Scheme guides
Organic
Regulated by destination-market rules — EU organic regulation, USDA NOP, JAS and others — and audited by accredited certification bodies.
Organic certification governs what may be applied to the crop and how certified coffee is kept separate from non-certified coffee at every handling step. It is a production and handling standard, not a quality standard: an organic lot can cup at any level.
- Prohibited inputs
- Conversion period
- Segregation
- Chain of custody
Fairtrade
Fairtrade International standards, audited by FLOCERT.
Fairtrade sets a floor price and adds a premium paid to the producer organisation, which decides collectively how to invest it. For coffee it applies to smallholder organisations rather than to estates.
- Minimum price
- Fairtrade Premium
- Producer organisation governance
- Labour standards
Rainforest Alliance
Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Agriculture Standard, audited by authorised certification bodies.
A farm and supply-chain standard covering environmental management, working conditions and record keeping. The 2020 standard introduced a sustainability differential and investment payable to certificate holders.
- Forest and biodiversity
- Farm management
- Human rights
- Climate-smart practice
4C
4C Services baseline sustainability standard for coffee.
An entry-level, high-volume baseline standard designed for commercial coffee. It excludes the worst practices and requires documented management rather than demanding the full scope of a premium scheme.
- Baseline sustainability
- Prohibited practices
- Traceability
- Continuous improvement