When you buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks, what are you actually paying for? Unfortunately, the most expensive asset of a cup of coffee is the cup itself. Large franchise companies earn profits through sales promotions and branding rather than through the products they sell. (1) Currently the price of coffee is lower than it should be due to the overproduction of coffee around the world. Overproduction of this commodity has a devastating effect on producers. This article will discuss the reasons for the low cost of coffee that occur because farmers are underpaid for their products and how they are manipulated by large corporations and the government. Furthermore, we need to examine how these actions lead to environmental and health consequences. Therefore, an unequal distribution of profits allows large companies like Starbucks and Nestlé to maximize their profits and allow us to enjoy an affordable cup of coffee. Large companies aim to maximize their profits and increase shareholder returns. They achieve this by paying producers an unregulated coffee price that is usually less than $0.80 per pound. (8) This rate is much lower than the cost of production and forces farmers to live in poverty. Ideally, coffee farmers should be paid at least $1.24 per pound to produce coffee beans sustainably. (2) Coffee prices have even dropped to as low as $0.40 per pound due to increased coffee production and minimal consumption. (3)These increases in production also lead to a reduction in labor costs. Large companies like Starbucks and US roasters sell their coffee and specialty drinks at a dramatically higher price than they pay to coffee farmers. (9) Provided that there is a large imbalance in the distr...... middle of the document .......utoronto.ca/docview/229033484/fulltextPDF/141D8D8AD5137EC666C/4?accountid=14771 http:// search.proquest.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/docview/231320448/fulltextPDF/141D8D8AD5137EC666C/7?accountid=14771 http://bf4dv7zn3u.search.serialssolutions.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/?ctx_ver= Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQ%3Apqrl&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.jtitle=The+Hispanic+American+Historical+ Review&rft .atitle=Coffee+anyone%3F+Recent+research+on+latino+american+coffee+societies&rft.au=Topik%2C+Steven+C&rft.aulast=Topik&rft.aufirst=Steven&rft.date=2000-05-01&rft. volume=80&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=225&rft.isbn=&rft.btitle=&rft.title=The+Hispanic+American+Historical+Review&rft.issn=00182168http://search.proquest.com.myaccess.library.utoronto. ca/docview/274700686/fulltextPDF/141D8F82C22756DB7E/4?accountid=14771