The Fairtrade Foundation said it is important to engage more mainstream businesses into adopting certification following Ben & Jerry’s commitment this morning (18 February) to go 100% Fairtrade.
The ice cream maker’s announcement today will see every ingredient used across its global portfolio sourced as Fairtrade certified by 2013.
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However, Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation told just-food that while it was “great news” and a “difficult project”, the organisation needs to engage more mainstream businesses in order to take Fairtrade certification “to scale”.
“In the movement of creating long-term sustainable change I think we’ve actually seen that it is the smaller 100% Fairtrade companies, the pioneers that adopted the way. The first to adopt Fairtrade were companies like Traidcraft or Divine Chocolate…companies who were 100% committed to Fairtrade.”
She added: “They opened the way and from a very early time, they’ve all been very committed to Fairtrade and very aware that if we’re going to take it to scale and really enable millions of farmers and workers to benefit, then we absolutely also need to engage more mainstream businesses.”
Nonetheless, Lamb believes that over the last 15 years, since the inception of the Fairtrade mark, more companies have gradually adopted the certification.
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By GlobalData“There are those like Sainsbury’s who were the first to stock Maya Gold and still are leading today with all their own labels, which is a very very significant commitment by a major company.”
She added: “What we did see last year, undoubtedly, was a feeling of people taking Fairtrade right to the heart of their businesses. In 2008 we had Tate & Lyle switching their retail sugar to Fairtrade and last year we had companies like Cadbury and Nestle announcing they were going Fairtrade. So the mainstream businesses are beginning to really understand the public concern about Fairtrade.”
