Executable

Does this page say the coffee is fair trade?

ALS-COFFEE-1.0-CERT-002

This question is asked as a test and produces a result for a real page.

Assertion

fair_trade_claim_stated is_stated true

Applicability

applies when
the product is roasted coffee offered to consumers in any format
signal
product_type or title indicates coffee

Accepted evidence

  • product_description — an explicit scheme claim naming the certified counterparty e.g. Fairtrade certified beans from a co-operative in Huila.
  • structured_data — the same statement inside the JSON-LD product description
  • product_faq — the same statement in FAQ structured data

Explicitly insufficient evidence

What does not count, and why. Published because the omission is where a check quietly becomes a claim.

  • lowercase generic "fair trade", "fairly traded", "fair trade principles"
    These sit outside every scheme, and their lexical closeness to the certified mark is the whole problem: a reader cannot tell a scheme claim from a sentiment.
  • "we believe fair trade should be the industry standard"
    An aspiration about the industry is not a claim about this product, and the engine currently credits it — a pinned corpus defect that makes this the least reliable executable entry in the standard.
  • a Fair Trade USA seal treated as the same thing as the FAIRTRADE Mark
    They are different schemes with different standards, different marks and different registers, and one of the two registers is behind a login, so conflating them launders the unverifiable one.
  • a co-operative's certification identifier presented as the roaster's
    The co-operative's certification is genuine and the inference is wrong; the mark on a consumer pack requires a licence held by the brand, which is a separate arrangement.
  • a rendered scheme logo with no identifier
    A logo image is not page text, resolves to nothing, and is the easiest element on a page to copy.
  • "we pay above the market price" or "direct trade"
    These are real trade practices with no scheme, no definition and no register, so they are self-declared and are routinely substituted for a scheme claim.
  • a mass-balance or sourcing-programme variant read as product certification
    A certificate-holder record cannot establish what fraction of the coffee in a given bag is certified, so a sourcing-programme claim answers a different question.

Conflict rules

  • When a scheme claim appears only in a review quote or a customer question — then a customer's words are not the store's statement and must not satisfy the assertion precedence: product_description > product_faq
  • When two different schemes are named on one page — then record both as stated; the standard does not rank schemes or resolve which applies to this lot

What a pass licenses

A pass establishes: That readable product text on this page contains a fair-trade phrase of some form, quoted verbatim where a clean sentence exists.

A pass does NOT establish: That any scheme certified anyone, which scheme is meant, that the seller holds a licence, or that the phrase is a claim rather than an aspiration or a comparison.

Discrimination

Measured fail rate: 96.0% (n=100 products asked)

Predicted before this standard had ever run: 40-75% — the real rate is higher, so the entry discriminates less than predicted.

Scheme claims are less common than organic in specialty coffee, where direct-trade language often replaces them, but the engine's dictionary also matches the generic lowercase phrase, so the pass condition is much broader than the scheme question. The band reflects both effects pulling in opposite directions.

Known gaps

  • "We believe fair trade should be the industry standard." — false_pass
    The single most damaging collision in this standard: an aspiration, and in context often a denial, is credited as a stated claim. Pinned open in the corpus.
  • "Love that it's fragrance-free!" — a customer in Portland. — false_pass
    Review quotes credited as the store's statement, which applies to every claim row.
  • "A gift bundle of our house blends." with the claim phrase in shipping-policy chrome — false_pass
    Claim rows accept the shipping-policy surface; being fixed concurrently.

For a shopper

There are several different fair-trade schemes and one generic phrase that belongs to none of them, so the useful question is which scheme is named and who is certified under it. One of the two main schemes publishes a free searchable register; the other keeps its authoritative lookup behind a login, so a claim under it cannot be checked from outside.

For a merchant

Name the scheme exactly, name the certified counterparty, and publish the scheme identifier where you hold one, so that a reader can resolve the claim in the scheme's own register instead of relying on a logo.

Grounding

  • Fairtrade International, traceability in Fairtrade supply chains (certification_body)
    that all Fairtrade coffee is fully physically traceable while cocoa, tea, sugar and juices may use mass balance, and that certified producers and traders are distinct from licensees who put the mark on a consumer pack
  • FLOCERT Fairtrade Customer Search (certification_body)
    that a free public search of certified organisations exists and is browsable by status, product, country and function, confirmed live by an independent verification pass
  • Fair Trade USA Partner Portal search (certification_body)
    that the authoritative status lookup for the other main scheme renders a login screen, confirmed by direct fetch, so a claim under it cannot be resolved by any outside reader or automated check