Remember last year’s summer products review? You told us you loved it so much that we’ve done it again and we’ve gone bigger…
Check out the Fairtrade Foundation blog to see what the team at Fairtrade thought.
If you’ve found other exciting Fairtrade products let us know!
Nestlé has announced it will change the way it sources Fairtrade ingredients for its KitKat 2 and 4 finger chocolate.
From 5 June 2017, the company will switch from sourcing All That Can Be Fairtrade to sourcing cocoa, sugar and vanilla through the Fairtrade Cocoa, Sugar and Vanilla Programs. As a result, affected KitKat products will begin to carry the FAIRTRADE Program Mark on the back of pack instead of the FAIRTRADE Mark. This is part of Nestlé’s global strategy to give more prominence on all confectionery packaging to Nestlé’s flagship Cocoa Plan and the change brings KitKat in line with the rest of their chocolate confectionery range; whilst still maintaining their Fairtrade commitment.
Nestlé will continue to buy all the cocoa, sugar and vanilla needed for its KitKat 2 and 4 finger chocolate on Fairtrade terms, and farmers will still follow the Fairtrade Standards and receive the same benefits. As well as the Fairtrade price (or market price if higher) for the commodity, farmer groups receive the Fairtrade premium to invest in long-term community and business projects of their own choice, such as education and healthcare.
The Fairtrade Sourcing Program was designed by Fairtrade to offer businesses another way to purchase Fairtrade cocoa, sugar and vanilla, and in doing so, increasing the opportunities for producers to sell on Fairtrade terms. Many European markets have adopted the Fairtrade Cocoa Program, and this has increased global sales of Fairtrade cocoa from 51,000 metric tonnes in 2012 to just over 100,000 tonnes in 2016. Confectionery brands such as Ferrero and Mars have already committed to the Fairtrade Cocoa Program.
Nestlé’s collaboration with Fairtrade began in 2009, when the UK’s best-selling chocolate wafers, KitKat 4 finger, first received ethical certification through the FAIRTRADE Mark in the UK and Ireland. This move was then extended to the 2 finger.
KitKat, made in York, is the UK’s favourite chocolate wafer fingers, with 1bn sold here each year. Launched in 1935 and originally called Chocolate Crisp, it has grown to become Nestlé’s biggest confectionery brand in the UK. The UK is the biggest market for KitKat globally, twice as big as the next highest, Japan.
Wouldn’t it be great if a few of these sort of Fairtrade “branded” machines were seen around the Bailiwick of Guernsey. It would really show that Guernsey is a Fairtrade Island!
Safia launches her new book ‘Slave to Fashion’ during Fashion Revolution Week. The book discusses modern slavery in fashion supply chains and goes through Safia’s journey finding out more behind the fashion industry.
I’m hoping that Slave to Fashion will be a crash course on modern slavery; why is it still happening in numbers like we have never seen before and what needs to change to stop it. Modern slavery includes; human trafficking, bonded, forced and child labour and excessive overtime.
The inspiration for Slave to Fashion came to me in a dream.
The faces and hands of women, children and men reached out to me, calling, smiling, asking for solidarity, not charity, and for me to witness and tell their stories. I wanted a big solution to poverty, exploitation and social injustice…
The book covers The Modern Slavery Act, The Global economy, Meet the Slaves (to protect the people I changed their names and masked their faces with a pink ribbon), the Social & Technical Innovations and investigative journalism that is making the difference, and a Toolkit.
The Fair Trade movement has been key to building public awareness, set decent standards for different agricultural commodities and manufacturing for products and terms of trade and has inspired policy makers and the media. The MSA (Modern Slavery Act), passed in 2015, which included supply chains and requires companies with a turnover of £36mn to file a Slavery Report on what they are doing to eradicate slavery in their supply chains, requires sign off of the company board. There is a lot that needs to happen to make this more effective and give the public access to this information, and make it easy to act upon. The MSA represents a unique opportunity to deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (remember those?!) and the Ruggie Principles (UN Guiding Principles and Human Rights). But what does this mean in reality for the workers?
It is clear that it has the power as companies are forced to get to know their supply chains and maintain information through good transparency, promote social dialogue, design and plan their orders better, to strengthen local legal systems, challenge corruption and strengthen human rights through laws and codes of practice that WORK, including paying a living wage and respecting independent trade unions.
Researching, interviewing for and writing Slave to Fashion, I spend 6 months meeting women men and children in India, Cambodia and Bangladesh and hearing their stories and interviewed business people and activists working on human rights and slavery issues. Girls who were 12 when they started working at a cotton mill where her friends, other children were bonded labourers, and at 15 felt too exhausted and burnt out to work in a garment factory for 6 days a week; women who were trafficked and ended up in the sex and garment trade. Women who are sexually harassed by their male supervisors and who walk a thin line daily between losing the benefits of a permanent job and ‘giving sexual favours’. The sickening violence of slavery and misused power.
The great news is that there are Fairtrade, social enterprise and tech solutions out there and there are progressive companies too who are pushing the boundaries forward and inviting their peers to work with them to improve practice.
As a Fairtrade leader and entrepreneur, having worked in the so-called developing world with trade unions and economically marginalised people for over 20 years, we know that good trade can make a huge difference to people and prevent communities protect themselves from criminal gangs that broker people.
Just one of the many great Easter Eggs available at local Co-op stores this year.
Wouldn’t it be nice if Aurigny or Blue Islands supported Fairtrade too!
MEET THE BRANDS DOING BUSINESS DIFFERENTLY
Some companies were created to make trade fairer. Meet the brands that are pioneering innovation in Fairtrade.
It’s not just business as usual, these companies have created their entire businesses with producers at the heart of everything they do.
Some of them have been working towards fairer trade with producers long before the FAIRTRADE Mark existed. Their pioneering work made many multinational companies switch to Fairtrade, and they continue to innovate with new products, new ways of empowering farmers and new ways of trading. Their work is vital to the future of Fairtrade.
Find out who these brands are, what they do and most importantly – what you can do to be part of making their vision a reality http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/doingbusinessdifferently
Then speak to us in Fairtrade Guernsey to see how your business can play its part in supporting producers.
Fairtrade has empowered women farmers like Kabore Christine, a mango farmer from Burkina Faso in West Africa. After fleeing war in Côte d’Ivoire, many women in her community were left widowed and homeless. Kabore Christine now looks after 15 children, including eight of her own. Together, the women in her co-operative are rebuilding their lives.
Since becoming Fairtrade certified, Kabore Christine and farmers in a number of other co-operatives have used their Fairtrade Premium to improve their communities. They have provided women farmers with loans for bicycles so they can get to work and for gas cookers for their homes. The co-operatives have also invested in healthcare centres, adult literacy classes and a crèche.
So, when you pick up your dried mango in your local F
airtrade store, you could be eating fruit grown by Kabore Christine. Just pop into a store near you and see for yourself just how many delicious Fairtrade products there are.
New Zealand Fairtrade Chocolate Bar wrapper
Look what a friend brought back from their trip to New Zealand recently. Wonder if the milk is from a Guernsey cow?! (Main thing it’s Fairtrade!!)
Flower farmers and workers
The cut flower trade is now a major industry in both developing and developed countries, with global trade estimated to be worth more than $100 billion a year. The Netherlands is a major exporter of cut flowers, accounting for 55% of trade followed by Colombia (18%), Ecuador (9%) and Kenya (6%). The major consumptions markets are Germany (19%), USA (17%), UK (16%) and the Netherlands (13%).
The industry is becoming increasingly important to the economies of developing counties, bringing in vital foreign exchange for investment in economic development. Most flowers are produced on commercial farms and provide employment opportunities and improved livelihoods for millions of workers. Colombia’s flower exports, for example, generates an income for around 800,000 people while Kenya’s flower industry provides vital income for up to two million people and is the country’s second largest agricultural foreign exchange earner (after tea) at more than $500 million a year.
The flower industry employs a largely female workforce of poor, less educated and therefore vulnerable workers. It has long had a reputation for poor working conditions including low pay, over-crowded housing and repression of trade unions. Over the past years, conditions have vastly improved for workers in many countries, but there are still challenges.
Fairtrade aims to protect and benefit workers on flowers farms by working with certified farms to ensure decent working conditions for their employees and protecting workers’ rights. These rights encompass economic, environmental and social dimensions of working conditions but also aim to amplify and strengthen the voice and choices of workers’ themselves. A recent study by Fairtrade International with three certified flower plantations in Ecuador, provides useful insight into how workers view their own empowerment and how Fairtrade can support their goals
Fairtrade works with 55 Fairtrade certified flower producer organisations in eight countries, representing 48,500 workers. Fairtrade sales generate an additional Fairtrade Premium for workers to invest in projects of their choice. In 2014, sales of almost 640 million stems meant flower plantation workers received Premium payments of £4.4 million which they spent on education, housing improvements, finance and credit services, as well as supporting education in their communities by renovating school buildings and providing student bursaries.
This video about Ravine Roses, a Fairtrade certified flower plantation in Kenya, shows the difference that Fairtrade Premium funds have made to worker empowerment and community development in the region. (Source Fairtrade Foundation)