Boost for Farmers As Record Fairtrade Sales Figures Are Announced - Fairtrade Fouyndation Calls For Even Greater Pressure for Change

CHANGE TODAY. CHOOSE FAIRTRADE.

Fairtrade Fortnight (26 February – 11 March 2007)

• UK sales of Fairtrade products are running at £300m per year

• TV presenter Gail Porter visits coffee producers in Uganda – TV footage and photos available

• 2,500 retail and catering product lines now carry the FAIRTRADE Mark

• The number of towns, cities and villages awarded Fairtrade status set to reach 250 during Fairtrade Fortnight

• 368 producer groups are now selling to the UK Fairtrade market

• Roosevelt Skerrit, the Prime Minister of Dominica, in the Windward Islands, to visit the UK for Fairtrade Fortnight and give evidence to the parliamentary enquiry on fair trade and development

• New pace set for retailers as Sainsbury’s CEO Justin King visits Windward Islands to confirm 100% switch to Fairtrade bananas and discuss plans with farmers

The Fairtrade Foundation’s message for Fairtrade Fortnight 2007 is that, whilst sales of Fairtrade products continue to soar, change is still not happening quickly enough for millions of the world’s poorest farmers who remain trapped in ‘trade poverty’. The Foundation believes that 2007 will be the year when people define themselves by their attitude to fairness in society. We expect a surge of support for real values, such as those enshrined in Fairtrade, which will create a momentum allowing significant change to become possible.

Change Today. Choose Fairtrade, the theme of Fairtrade Fortnight is an urgent call to individuals, community groups, schools, universities and faith networks to scale up their own activity as part of the Fairtrade Foundation’s vision of an even bigger movement for positive change on trade. This is a challenge to consumers to see the regular purchasing of Fairtrade products as a long-term contribution to tackling poverty - so that people in developing countries can also bring about the changes they want and need in their lives and communities. The Foundation’s message is also a challenge to governments, business and public institutions to implement their own changes in sourcing and procurement, taking the lead from ordinary consumers who have driven Fairtrade to where it is today with one in two people now saying they recognise the FAIRTRADE Mark.

As Harriet Lamb, Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation, will say at the national launch of Fairtrade Fortnight which opens with an evening reception today (26 February) at Lloyd’s of London: “The road signs for tomorrow’s Fairtrade world are out there. Up and down the country, the public are knocking on doors from the town hall to the local supermarket asking for more engagement with Fairtrade, and this is driving companies, large and small, to respond. And all of this means more farmers are able to sell more of their produce under Fairtrade terms, strengthening their organisations, building long-term relationships and increasing benefits to their communities.

“But the road to our destination is still long and hard,” Harriet adds. “Fairtrade is beginning to move from being an ‘optional extra’ to a ‘must-do’. Way too many companies have yet to wake up to the public’s changing expectations. We need people to shout even louder, and we need companies to respond with genuine engagement. Otherwise millions of farmers will remain consigned to poverty. Fairtrade must become an everyday part of the way this nation thinks and shops."

“Fairtrade has achieved a paradigm shift that has popularised the link with the farmers who grow the food on our tables that puts people – the producers and consumers – at the centre of trade, and is redefining what is acceptable behaviour for all of us, from consumers to business to governments. Fairtrade is a powerful idea showing that you can and should manage markets for social and development goals. It’s a powerful idea and it is rapidly triggering changes. The challenge now is to capitalize on the current momentum and take Fairtrade to the next level.”

Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica and representing the Windward Islands’ governments, will also address the launch gathering, and reflect on the impact Fairtrade has had in turning around the fortunes of the islands’ small banana farmers. Facing an uphill struggle against falling supermarket prices, competition from industrial plantations and changing EU trade rules, Fairtrade has proved a lifeline for banana growers, transforming their fortunes and enabling them to invest in social and educational community projects. The recent groundbreaking announcement by Sainsbury’s to switch 100% of their bananas to Fairtrade has provided further grounds for hope for producers in the Caribbean and Latin America. Justin King, CEO of Sainsbury’s, has just returned from St Lucia where he discussed these plans with farmers themselves.

Harriet will announce in her speech that sales of Fairtrade certified products reached an estimated retail value of £290m in 2006, an increase of 46% over the past year, and in 2007 sales are already running at an annual rate of at least £300m. Meanwhile the actual volumes of products, the benchmark for defining the real benefit returned to producers, rose by over 60%. Coffee sales (retail and catering) have increased by 39%, tea (retail and catering) by 50% and bananas by 39%. The variety of Fairtrade products has also shot up. With more than 2,500 retail and catering products now available from more than 260 different companies, Harriet will say it is easier than ever to Change Today. Choose Fairtrade.

Harriet will also report some of the other ‘changes’ that have gathered pace in the past twelve months with 250 towns and communities that have met goals for Fairtrade status, along with 3,100 Fairtrade Churches, over 30 Fairtrade Synagogues and nearly 50 Fairtrade Universities. Interest is now growing amongst mosques and Hindu temples. The growing appetite for Fairtrade and consumer demand for Fairtrade certified products has led to an explosion of company interest in Fairtrade. As well as Sainsbury’s switch to 100 percent Fairtrade bananas, significant developments include Next and Debenhams launching their first clothes made with Fairtrade certified cotton, whilst Marks & Spencer is increasing its range to provide an ‘outfit for all the family’ and has converted all of their whole fresh pineapples to 100% Fairtrade. As well as promoting Fairtrade Fortnight with national TV advertising, the Co-op will launch Fairtrade cotton shopping bags. Boots are launching a range of babywear from Hug called Little Green Radicals and TK Maxx are selling this year’s Comic Relief T shirts which are made of Fairtrade Certified Cotton. Monsoon are launching a new range of T shirts using Fairtrade Certified Cotton in Spring. Top Shop are launching a range of clothing with the fair trade pioneer company People Tree called ‘People Tree for Top Shop’.

Tesco is extending its range of Fairtrade nuts to five items ranging from brazil nuts to a peanut, cashew and mango mix, Thresher’s is launching a range of Fairtrade wines, and Waitrose is switching its banana range to 100% Fairtrade and introducing a range of Fairtrade roses. Expanded ranges of fresh produce will be the focus of in-store promotions in Morrison’s and Asda. Meanwhile three long-standing Fairtrade pioneers - Traidcraft, Cafédirect and Divine Chocolate - have all marked the start of 2007 with eye-catching new packaging designs. Cafédirect’s revamped range now includes ‘Special Selection’ and single origin coffees. AMT Coffee, which was the first national coffee company to go 100% Fairtrade, will be promoting the film BLACK GOLD in their coffee bars, giving out postcards and running a '50% off coffee' offer when customers present their cinema tickets. This critically-acclaimed film, which features Ethiopian Fairtrade producer Tadesse Meskela and has sent shock-waves through the global coffee industry, is being released in cinemas at the beginning of June.

At the Fairtrade Fortnight launch, producers from developing countries who supply the UK Fairtrade market will be represented by coffee farmer Merling Preza Ramos from the Prodecoop cooperative in Nicaragua, who is the newly appointed representative of Latin American producers on the Board of the Fairtrade Foundation. She will say how important it is to address the deep injustices of international trade that have damaged the lives of farmers and workers across the world for too long. Merling will explain how the collapse of the international coffee price in the late 1990s and successive years of unprecedented rock-bottom prices propelled coffee farmers and workers supplying the conventional market towards destitution. For the first time the World Health Organisation had to set up feeding centres for mothers and children under five in the Matagalpa coffee growing area of northern Nicaragua.

“The Fairtrade price allowed us to survive as coffee farmers. It covered our cost of production, let us send our children to school, buy clothes and keep a roof over our heads,” says Merling. “Even through the worst of the crisis, we were still making developments, strengthening our business and using the Fairtrade premium to invest in our health and education.” Merling will stress the importance for small farmers of working together democratically in co-operatives in order to build quality improvements to access higher value markets. She will point to the role Fairtrade has played in supporting small-scale growers’ organisations to become dynamic players in the Latin American coffee economy. However, she will warn that the world’s major coffee roasters, who dominate global coffee purchasing, are yet to engage as they should with the spirit or practices of Fairtrade.

Another speaker who will comment on the importance of Fairtrade for smallholder coffee farmers is TV presenter Gail Porter who has been a big supporter of Fairtrade for many years and visited Gumutindo coffee growers’ cooperative in Uganda last month (Gumutindo means “excellent quality” in the local Lugisu language). The trip was made possible with funding by Shared Interest, the co-operative lending society which is a member of the Fairtrade Foundation and which has loaned funds to Gumutindo for the acquisition and renovation of a coffee warehouse and offices.

Gail will talk about how she travelled to the lush foothills of Mount Elgon in the south-east of Uganda to learn more about the benefits that the Fairtrade system has brought to the region’s farmers. Coffee is the main source of income for 91% of people there. Gail visited the home of co-operative treasurer Oliva Kishera in Buginyanya village and helped Oliva harvest her coffee. Oliva, like thousands of others in Uganda, cultivates, harvests and processes coffee on her six-acre farm (others are typically the size of a large UK back garden).

Gail says: “I saw for myself how hard coffee farmers work. It seems a natural process that they should receive a fair price for all their effort and it’s a shame that still today not everyone is aware that all trade is not necessarily fair.”
The FAIRTRADE Mark is the only consumer label that focuses on ensuring farmers in developing countries receive an agreed and stable price for the crops they grow, as well as an additional Fairtrade premium to invest in social projects or business development programmes. Typically, farmers’ groups decide to use the premium on education, healthcare and clean water supplies, or the repair of roads and bridges, and to strengthen their businesses, improve the quality of their crop or convert to organic production.

Thousands of events will take place around the country to promote Fairtrade Fortnight – everything from fashion shows and football matches, to concerts and exhibitions. Tastings of Fairtrade products will be held in churches, mosques, synagogues, schools, universities, supermarkets and workplaces. Fairtrade producers from countries including Uganda, Malawi, Ghana, Pakistan, Nicaragua, St Lucia (Windward Islands), Bolivia and South Africa will be touring the UK during the Fortnight and meeting directly with campaigners. Action Aid will use Fairtrade products in their annual fundraising campaign ‘Tea and Coffee Break 2007’, Oxfam will promote the Fairtrade at Work campaign, and Tearfund’s Fairtrade Man will be eating only Fairtrade products during Fairtrade Fortnight to emphasise how wide and diverse the range of Fairtrade goods is today. Embracing the opportunities provided by the live web, the public are being encouraged to share their event photos, videos and comments via a new interactive website dubbed ‘My Fairtrade’. Meanwhile, publishers Dorling Kindersley are marking the Fortnight by launching a public competition to find the nation’s favourite Fairtrade recipes, with the best entries to be published as the Fairtrade Everyday Cookbook in 2008.

Two new books are also being launched to coincide with Fairtrade Fortnight. 50 Reasons to Buy Fair Trade, written by John Madeley and Miles Litvinoff and published by Pluto Press, is an informative and inspiring shoppers’ guide to the subject. Meanwhile marketeers should look out for The Handbook of Organic and Fairtrade Marketing, edited by Simon Wright (including a chapter by Harriet Lamb) and published by Blackwell Publishing.

“With everything from peppercorns, cinnamon and vanilla pods, to avocados, wine, flowers, and cotton wool, there is something for everyone in Fairtrade,” says Harriet Lamb. “Many people still only think of tea and coffee, but there is now a huge range of Fairtrade products, and rapidly growing choice for shoppers. So there is something for everyone among the 2,500 Fairtrade retail and catering products - and Fairtrade Fortnight 2007 is a great time for people to make the change and choose Fairtrade.”

Notes to Editors

1. All figures for retail values are estimates, calculated from reported wholesale values.
2. Harriet Lamb, Director of the Fairtrade Foundation, and Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of Dominica, will be giving evidence on the first day of an inquiry by the International Development Committee into fair trade and development. The inquiry will examine how effective fair trade is in reducing poverty and how donors – in particular the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) – can support fair trade in their development assistance.
3. The BLACK GOLD filmmakers launched a campaign last month at the House of Commons to ensure as many people as possible go to the cinema to see the film to raise awareness about the importance of fair trade. To find out more visit www.blackgoldmovie.com
4. The Fairtrade Foundation is an independent certification body that awards the FAIRTRADE Mark to products which meet international Fairtrade standards set by FLO (Fairtrade Labelling Organisations International). Currently FLO spans almost 80 countries, working with 580 producer partners from 58 countries and across 21 Fairtrade markets in Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and Japan. Five million people - farmers, workers and their families - benefit from the international Fairtrade system and FLO aims to continually increase the number of producer groups registered to supply the international Fairtrade market. For example, the number of African Fairtrade certified organisations rose from 42 from 12 countries in 2002 to 164 organisations from 23 countries by the end of 2006 – an increase of 290%.
5. The full range of Fairtrade products is: coffee, tea, chocolate, cocoa, sugar, bananas, pineapples, mangoes, oranges, satsumas, clementines, lemons, avocados, lychees, grapes, apples, pears, plums, fruit juices, smoothies, quinoa, peppers, green beans, coconuts, dried fruit (apricots, mango, raisins, dates), herbal teas, rooibos tea, green tea, ice-cream, cakes, biscuits, honey, muesli, cereal bars, jams, chutney, sauces, herbs, spices (vanilla pods, cinnamon sticks, ground ginger, ground turmeric, black pepper, cloves, nutmeg), nuts (brazils, cashews, peanuts), nut oil, wine, beer, rum, rice, yoghurt, baby food, flowers, sportsballs, sugar body scrub, cotton wool and other cotton products.
6. The Fairtrade Foundation expects sales of products with the FAIRTRADE Mark to at least maintain the pace of recent years, which is to double every two years. In its latest Attitudes towards Ethical Foods report, Mintel said British shoppers will spend £2bn on Fairtrade, organic and locally sourced products this year, an increase of 62% since 2002. It also found Fairtrade to be the fastest growing of these sectors with a 265% growth since 2002. Last year, Mintel predicted the Fairtrade market would be worth at least £547m by 2011.
7. A recent Institute of Grocery Distribution report says UK shoppers are now spending £13bn a year on premium food and groceries - products which are organic, Fairtrade, premium brands, retailers’ premium own label, local and regional foods, and specialist fine foods. It predicts the value of the market will rise to £19.2bn by 2011. The report suggests that the premium sector now makes up around 10% of the food and grocery market, and will rise to 13.5% by 2011, with the strongest growth in organic, Fairtrade, retailers’ private label ranges, and premium brands.
8. The five goals to achieve Fairtrade Town status are: the local council passes a resolution supporting Fairtrade, and serves Fairtrade coffee and tea at its meetings, in its offices and canteens; a range of Fairtrade products are readily available in the area’s shops; Fairtrade products are served in local cafés/catering establishments; Fairtrade products are used by a number of local work places and community organisations; a local Fairtrade steering group is convened to ensure commitment to Fairtrade Town status.
9. Fairtrade Fortnight is promoted by networks around the country including development agencies ActionAid, CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam, SCIAF, Tearfund, Traidcraft Exchange and the World Development Movement, as well as a wide range of other organisations: Banana Link, the Methodist Relief and Development Fund, the Mothers’ Union, The National Federation of Women’s Institutes, the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, People & Planet, Shared Interest Foundation, Soroptimist GBI, the Public and Commercial Services Union, UNISON, the United Reformed Church, and many individual churches.
   

For further information, phone 020 7440 7686/7695 or mobile 07770 957 451 or email eileen.maybin@fairtrade.org.uk or martine.julseth@fairtrade.org.uk.

The Fairtrade Foundation,
Room 204, 16 Baldwin’s Gardens,
London EC1N 7RJ.

Tel: 020 7405 5942
Fax: 020 7405 5943
Web: www.fairtrade.org.uk