I recently found out that the chocolate company Cadbury has now gone ‘Fairtrade’. It is a really great step for such a big company. However I wanted to find out what it really meant for the popular chocolate company. According to the Fairtrade Association (Australia & New Zealand), Cadbury are now committed to achieving Fairtrade Certification for all Cadbury Dairy Milk® chocolates by this years (’10) easter, that has just gone by.
So they will be getting Fairtrade Certification for only the Dairy Milk® Chocolate rather than all the chocolates in their range. It’s a shame they haven’t gone completely Fairtrade, it’s still it’s a start though.
So what are they committing to exactly? According to the Fairtrade Association this means that they will:
- Buy from existing Certified Fairtrade farmers’ organisations and they will be building on the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership (CCP),  in which they are investing AU$100m over ten years in improving life for cocoa farmers in Ghana and other parts of the world.
- Will be committed to pay the producer organisations, the internationally agreed Fairtrade minimum price (currently US$1600 per tonne, or the market price, if higher than this), as well as additional the Fairtrade premium (currently an additional US$150 per tonne of cocoa beans) to be used collectively for investment in business and community projects to improve life for the future.
- Fairtrade Labelling Australia & New Zealand and its international partner certification body, FLO-CERT, will be independently monitoring and auditing the supply chain against internationally agreed Fairtrade standards.
So who does this benefit?
- Ghanaian co-operatives & other cocoa farmers in the Ghana who have never had the Fairtrade agreements before can benefit. The cocoa farmers’ organisations will receive the minimum Fairtrade price or higher and will benefit from Fairtrade premiums from Cadbury Dairy Milk® sales.
It must be said that Cadbury has so far only committed to making their Dairy Milk® brand of chocolate certified Fairtrade and they haven’t yet done so for any of their other chocolates. So it is  a product endorsement by the Fairtade Label for only that one type of chocolate. And it is only their sugar and cocoa that are in compliance with International Fairtrade standards (none of the other ingredients ). It would be great if they could also go organic (and use less refined products), but that seems like a few years away. But it a step in the right direction and I commend Cadbury for getting on the right track!
[Please note: I am not trying to endorse or promote the Cadbury company, I am just providing information about their current Fairtrade status.]
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Michelle
Health Food Lover is Michelle Robson-Garth. Michelle is a degree-qualified Naturopath (BHSc) and Massage Therapist. She is also a passionate writer, recipe-creator and all-round foodie from Melbourne, Australia. © Copyright: 2009-2012 Michelle Robson-Garth. Please ask permission first when using any text or images on healthfoodlover.com. Read the disclaimer here. Have a look at the recipe index for more health food lovin’ recipes. Join the Facebook page & follow Health Food Lover on twitter.
