Chapter 7 turns to the interaction between private and public regulation, with three main conclusions. One, standards perform poorly when they aim to reinforce public regulation, with little difference between certified and noncertified groups’ compliance with national-level rules. Two, national-level institutions may constitute important barriers to the effectiveness of private regulation when they pursue goals orthogonal to those of certification schemes – which is frequently the case in the coffee sector. Three, even when national institutions align on the goals for a sustainable coffee sector, the greater insulation they provide from the mainstream market – with its price volatility and bargaining power disparities – the more difficult it is for private sustainability standards to work as intended. Here we thus find a trade-off between public and private regulation that has hitherto been underappreciated.