For Immediate Release At Just Us!, our mission is People and the Planet before Profits and we place significant value on attributes like authenticity, co-operation, community, instinct and justice. Further, as a worker-owned cooperative since 1995, we are deeply committed to the 7 Cooperative Principles which form the basis of our business model. Indeed, these three pillars inform our business in all that we do – especially with respect to our value chain. For more than 20 years Just Us! Coffee Roaster’s Cooperative Ltd. has built a business in partnership with a strong network of small and medium size enterprises across Canada. As our business grew, so did our network of customers. Our value chain now consists of a complex blend of independent coffeehouses to major retailers (and everything in between) across this country not to mention the hundreds of customers who make daily visits to our own retail locations. We’re proud of the support we’ve received and appreciate the commitment our customers make, each and every day, to ensuring Canadians have access to high quality, certified fair trade and organic food products. While we’re proud of the business our co-operative has built, we acknowledge it would not have been possible without an outstanding group of people we care very deeply about: our workers. Our commitment to providing meaningful work, compensating people fairly for their time, and creating a safe and secure workplace are matters we take very seriously. Though we recognize we are not perfect, we work hard to ensure fairness is maintained throughout our business. Because of this, we are deeply saddened to hear via social and traditional media outlets that workers at another business serving our coffee are allegedly not being treated well by their employer. Further, our fair trade approach ensures workers at the producer level are paid fairly and we obviously expect the same locally. Just Us! does our best to support our customers in remaining true to our values and principles. Further, we believe workers deserve and should be paid fairly and on time in exchange for the work they do in a manner that is consistent with authentic fair trade values. To do otherwise is, simply put, not right. Just Us! believes in addition to offering the finest coffee, tea, chocolate and sugar, one of our competitive advantages is our ability to offer support, coaching and mentorship to our wholesale customers during challenging times as a business. In fact, we have a strong track record of doing so. In order to access supports like these, customers need only ask. In 2017 we sold our two HRM locations in good faith. One customer out of the 800+ we serve appears to be acting in a manner we do not condone. We will work to resolve the underlying concerns within the parameters we are allowed and able. We are Canada’s original choice for fair trade, organic coffee and look forward to continuing to work with all our customers in continuing to offer Canadians the products they love for generations to come. -30Contact: Joey Pittoello General Manager Just Us! Coffee Roasters Co-operative Ltd. 11865 Hwy 1, Hortonville, Nova Scotia B4P 2R3 Date: March 26, 2018