Interesting discussion on recent Fairtrade news….

So far there’s been a mixed consumer reaction to the latest announcement from Cadbury that, from April 2010 their Dairy Milk product (and only the Dairy Milk) will be Fairtrade certified.

Check out the discussion on the TV3 news article at http://www.3news.co.nz/Default.aspx?TabId=423&articleID=118270&cat=41&ce2637=1#comment and let us know what you think, or post a comment of your own

Has a large chocolate manufacturer admitted using child slave labour?

Well we all knew it was coming, but who would have thought it would come with such inferred admissions?

The headline reads “Cadbury to drop cocoa made with child labour” - TVNZ, Aug 26 2009.  http://tvnz.co.nz/business-news/cadbury-drop-cocoa-made-child-labour-2946609 (which, on it’s own is a misleading headline – But I’ll address that later…) Can we then assume that for the last 100 years of so they have been? One could quite possibly assume so.

It’s a well known fact that a large proportion of cocoa comes from West Africa, a country where slave trading (In both women and children) is rife, and while excellent work from organisiations like Stop the Traffik (http://www.stopthetraffik.org) has helped fight and bring attention to despicable trade, it is still abhorrent that in 2009 we are still faced with child slavery every day.

Pure greed has driven large corporates, to source the cheapest raw ingredients to produce the cheapest product to enable them to buy market share, and what’s cheaper than paying workers nothing?

Enter the age of the educated consumer and these large corporates are now trying to use PR spin, half truths and giving with one hand while exploiting with 3 others. One should always view with skepticism, any announcement from a large corporate that proclaims to be introducing an ethical line as in the story above.

The truth behind the above TVNZ story it that it will only be the Dairy Milk that will be Fairtrade certified. One would then assume that the rest of the products will still be using exploitative African child labour

Is your chocolate slave free?

This article is a real eye opener.  The same question should be asked about coffee and tea.

http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/fair-trade-chocolate-menu-2934337/video

Fairtrade or Fair-washing?

We’re astounded at the absolute lack of knowledge of what’s really going on in within the chocolate industry!

Last night’s close up article was a real eye opener for anyone not already in the know. It will be interesting to see how the big corporate respond to this – Already in other parts of the world some have introduced a token Fairtrade offering, whilst still using exploitative cocoa for the bulk of their range.

We call this FAIR-WASHING

If you haven’t already seen it – the Close Up item is below… interesting comments at the end there…

http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/fair-trade-chocolate-menu-2934337/video