Fair Trade Campus

What is a Fair Trade Campus? 

Being a Fair Trade Campus means you are dedicated and committed to supporting, promoting, and celebrating that you provide fair trade products on your campus. Fair Trade Campuses provide food and drink options on their campus hospitality services locations to ensure their campus community has the opportunity to support fair trade practices. 

Our Commitment to Fair Trade 

The University of Guelph is proud to be known as Ontario's first fair trade campus, and the third designated Fair Trade campus in Canada. On November 28th, 2012, we officially became designated with help from Engineers Without Borders and the University Administration, who created a Fair Trade Campus Committee. It is now ten years later, and our commitment is stronger than ever. Our commitment to supporting farmers, community, and sustainability goes well beyond local. We proudly offer Fair Trade-certified and organic coffee and tea at our non-branded Hospitality Services locations, including our catering services orders. We continue to look for opportunities to add new Fair Trade confectionery products to our purchasing. 

Keep a lookout on campus for the Fair Trade symbol on products such as chocolate bars, coffee, cookies, and the famous chocolate chip banana bread. 
 

Fair Trade Companies on our Campus
 

Coffee Blends Supporting Gryphons


Gryphon Blend

Start your morning with a Fairtrade coffee that empowers women - The Gryphon Blend is roasted by Guelph's own Planet Bean Coffee. 

This blend, made in partnership with the University of Guelph and Planet Bean, was created to support women locally and globally. The combination donates a portion of the blend's sales to supporting women's varsity athlete scholarships for Guelph Gryphons. 

The blend itself is grown by Indigenous women in the Peruvian Andres through the women-led Cafe Femenino coffee program, which works to break the cycle of poverty for women coffee farmers worldwide. This program empowers women farmers economically by compensating them directly and fairly, allowing them to cultivate a better future for themselves, their families, and their communities.

The blend's aroma is dark chocolate and molasses. Sensory flavours are sweet potato, cinnamon, and cedar. You can purchase this blend from the University of Guelph Bookstore or Planet Bean locations.

Gryphon '64

Partnering with Baden Coffee, a local roaster based in Baden, Ontario, we've created our latest specialty coffee blend, Gryphon '64. 

This signature Fairtrade blend has three coffee origins; Africa, Indonesia and Central America and is an entry-level dark roast. 

Sensory notes are ground pepper aroma, smokey flavour, and i acidity with good balance.

This blend gives back - It was created to help support Gryphons by providing financial donations to initiatives and organizations supporting our campus community.

For the launch of Gryphon '64, a portion of the proceeds from all bags sold will be donated to the Guelph Student Foodbank, which provides graduate and undergraduate University of Guelph students with emergency food access and anti-poverty resources.

You can purchase this blend from the University of Guelph Bookstore.

A Farm to Farm System

Our Fair Trade commitments proudly support a "Farm to Farm" system. 

All our spent coffee grinds from Hospitality Services cafe locations are composted through the University of Guelph Sustainability Office's campus composting program. This means that our spent Fair Trade coffee beans, after being composted at the City of Guelph's Organic Waste Processing Facility, it is then sold as a high-quality soil amendment to farmers to apply to their fields.

Celebrate with Us

Make sure to follow our social media accounts, see promotions of our Fair Trade products, participate in giveaways, and stay updated with Fair Trade Canada promotions. 
 

Fair Trade Campus Resources