Tuesday, 31 March 2009 01:00 | and posted in News
Good news for chocolate lovers. This summer one of the UK's best selling chocolate bars will bear the Fairtrade mark. If you buy one of the 300 million bars of Dairy Milk sold in a year you will now be helping farmers to take steps out of poverty. Cadbury is one of the first major mainstream chocolate companies to make one of their products Fairtrade. This is a landmark move for such a large company and throws down the gauntlet to other major confectioners who have said such a move is not possible.
The Fairtrade mark means that farmers are paid a fair price for their products and can invest the money back into their communities. The money spent on Fairtrade goods will help farmers to build schools, health centres or enable them to construct a clean water source. It also helps to give the farmers a sense of stability in an unstable market. Cadbury will now source their cocoa from farmers in Ghana and around 40,000 farmers will benefit. Cadbury's investment will triple the amount of Fairtrade cocoa currently being produced in Ghana.
It's great news for the Fairtrade brand, even better news for the Ghanaian farmers but the activists among us may want still more! Get writing to Cadbury - congratulate them on their move to Fairtrade for Dairy Milk but ask for the rest of their chocolate to become Fairtrade too! Email the other major confectioners and ask them to follow Cadbury's example. And best of all, when summer comes buy loads of Dairy Milk, happy in the knowledge that your selfless chocolate eating is benefiting Ghanaian farmers.
