Responsible Shopper ranks big coffee corporations

When I write about corporate coffee, I often refer or link to Co-op America's Responsible Shopper corporate profiles.  They've now done summaries of many industries, comparing top companies in broad categories, including grading the largest coffee corporations. Companies get a letter grade, and are color-coded to boot.

The list includes the big four, plus Starbucks. Starbucks is a big player in the coffee industry, but frankly not in the same league as the other multinationals. It deserves a fair amount of criticism in some areas, but I believe Starbucks doesn't receive due credit for its role in heightening awareness of specialty coffee and weaning the public away from the multinationals.

As for the other four, letter grades for the Environment category are:

• Kraft = "n/i." This is undefined. No information? C'mon. I'll provide a generous one, based relative to the grades Co-op America is providing: C.
• Sara Lee = C-.
  
• Procter & Gamble = n/i. My grade: D-
• Nestlé = F (it got this failing grade across the board for various corporate responsibility categories).

Check out the chart here, as well as the corporate profiles of Kraft, Sara Lee, P&G, and Nestlé. Don't forget that even if they have stellar records in their coffee divisions (not that any of them do), your purchases support the whole company -- good, bad, and ugly.

Hat tip to Chris at Bean Activist for featuring these ratings.