Fair Trade Fortnight 09

Cadbury & Fairtrade Q & A

Cadbury Dairy Milk to become Fairtrade Certified by Easter 2010

1. What commitment to Fairtrade has been announced by Cadbury?

Cadbury has announced its commitment to achieving Fairtrade Certification for all Cadbury Dairy Milk® solid in Australia and New Zealand by Easter 2010. This is truly groundbreaking news for the Fairtrade movement – it’s their top selling chocolate bar and so fantastic news for cocoa growers in Ghana. We’re delighted to be working in partnership with one of Australasia’s leading brands, to deliver sustainable farming and better livelihoods for cocoa growers.

2. What does Fairtrade Certification of this chocolate mean?

It means that:

as well as buying from existing Certified Fairtrade farmers’ organisations, Cadbury will be building on the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership (CCP), launched just over a year ago, in which they are investing AU$100m over ten years in improving life for cocoa farmers in Ghana and other parts of the world.
Cadbury has committed to paying 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.

3. Who will benefit from this move?

This announcement is fantastic news, both for the current Ghanaian co-operatives who have been selling only a small percentage of their cocoa on Fairtrade terms, and for other cocoa farmers in the country who have never had the chance to get the benefits of Fairtrade before. As well as receiving the Fairtrade minimum price or higher, the cocoa farmers’ organisations look set to benefit from Fairtrade premiums of over AU$500,000 in the first year alone from Australian and New Zealand Cadbury Dairy Milk® sales. These premiums will then be used for business, social and environmental development with the cocoa growers’ community.

4. Will this just benefit existing Fairtrade farmers, or increase opportunities for other farmers?

This move will initially increase Fairtrade cocoa sales for Kuapa Kokoo (a Fairtrade cooperative in Ghana representing almost 50,000 small-scale cocoa growers), but will also open up new opportunities for thousands more farmers to benefit from the Fairtrade system.
Around 650,000 mainly small-scale cocoa growers in Ghana do not belong to farmers’ organisations and sell their crop individually to licensed buying companies. In the longer term Fairtrade will be working with Cadbury and local organisations to help organise more groups of cocoa farmers into co-operatives and work with them to achieve Fairtrade certification.
This will build on the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership (CCP), launched in January 2008, in which Cadbury are investing AU$100m over 10 years in Ghana to improve the lives of cocoa farmers. Combining the expertise and standards of Fairtrade with work being done in the CCP will lead to a more sustainable future for tens of thousands of cocoa farmers, their families and their villages.
Cadbury will continue to support cocoa growers in South East Asia and are committed to working with Fairtrade to develop new, sustainable sources of Fairtrade Certified cocoa in South East Asia and the Pacific.

5. Does this mean Fairtrade has endorsed the whole Cadbury brand?

The Fairtrade Label is a product certification, not a company endorsement scheme. Cadbury Dairy Milk® is their top selling chocolate bar in Australia and New Zealand and we see this as a major commitment from Cadbury. However, we are keen to go further than this in the long term and seek to continue to work with Cadbury to look at how this might be expanded to other products.

6. Why haven’t they committed to 100% cocoa conversion?

The conversion of Australia and New Zealand’s best selling chocolate bar to Fairtrade is a massive step forward and a major commitment. We believe this throws down the gauntlet to the rest of the chocolate industry too.
From a practical point of view, for Cadbury to source all their cocoa as Fairtrade Certified would require sourcing of a large volume of Fairtrade Certified cocoa and many more farmers to gain Certification. This is the first stage and then we want to see how much further we can go together.

7. Isn’t Cadbury just jumping on the bandwagon? Why didn’t they make this commitment years ago?

The important thing is that the company is making this commitment now. Given the current economic climate it’s more important than ever for companies to commit to
sustainable sourcing programmes – it makes very good business sense to do this.

8. What about child slavery in the cocoa industry? One chocolate bar isn’t going to make a difference to that, surely?

Fairtrade standards explicitly prohibit the use of forced or slave labour and we monitor against these standards. Fairtrade standards recognise that many children help their parents on the farm, and the standards allow this as long as they are not involved in dangerous work, and that such work does not interfere with their education or affect their health.

9. Isn’t Fairtrade meant to be an alternative to big companies? Why are you working with large multinationals like Cadbury?

Fairtrade aims to improve livelihoods for small scale farmers and workers, wherever they are marginalised in international trade. We already reach approximately 1.6 million farmers and workers, benefitting over 5 million people (farmers, workers and their families) directly, but millions more need a better deal from trade. We are prepared to work with any company that is willing to commit long-term to Fairtrade Certification, meet our rigorous standards and help us grow Fairtrade for much greater impact for poor communities in the developing world.

10. What about long standing Fairtrade chocolate brands? Won’t this just undermine their success?

We absolutely pay tribute to all the pioneering companies who have played a trailblazing role in Fairtrade chocolate, working with farmers on the ground as well as building up public support for Fairtrade. We believe that long-standing Fairtrade supporters will want to keep supporting these brands. However, our research has shown that lots of people aren’t choosing Fairtrade because they love the mainstream chocolate brands, so we hope that the addition of a mainstream, iconic brand such as Cadbury Dairy Milk® will not only get more people buying Fairtrade chocolate, but will also help increase the profile of the whole Fairtrade movement, thus contributing to the overall growth of Fairtrade.

11. What products will carry the Fairtrade Label, and will they cost more now that they are Fairtrade?

The Fairtrade Label will appear on all size blocks of Cadbury Dairy Milk® chocolate (the pure milk chocolate version, not Fruit & Nut or Whole Nut etc). The company is
not going to pass on any additional cost to its customers – this is going to be Fairtrade at a fair price for us too.

12. What other Fairtrade chocolate is available?

There is already a great range of Fairtrade Certified chocolate available in Australia and New Zealand, and you can find the full range using our online product finder.
They include:
- Alter Eco
- Chocolatier
- Cocolo
- Green & Black’s Maya Gold
- Heritage Fine Chocolates
- Maestrani
- Oxfam
- Scarborough Fair

For more information on this historic announcement or to find out more about Fairtrade please visit: www.fairtrade.com.au / www.fairtrade.org.nz