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Fairly traded chocolate?

11/12/2009 10:10:00


Today's Church Times Leader, The Kit-Kat club, makes reference to the Church Times from 100 years ago this week: 100 years ago: The Cadbury libel.

This week, the Archbishop of York posed in front of a large Kit-Kat poster to mark the first Fairtrade bars. Nestlé, which took over Rowntree Mackintosh in 1988, has been forced to follow Cadbury’s example, since both have been targeted by campaigners concerned about the exploitation of plantation workers, including children. The fact that similar arguments were being rehearsed in 1909 (see 100 years ago) is a shocking reminder that 100 years of progress in manufacturing has not been matched by justice for those in the developing world who produce the raw materials.

The Fairtrade Kit Kat launch mentioned in the column is here on the Archbishop of York's website: Archbishop Welcomes Fairtrade Kit Kat. The Archbishop is enthusiastic:

"The fact that Nestle have listened to local campaigners and invested considerable time, effort and financial support to make this Fairtrade biscuit a reality is fantastic news."

An interesting blog post by Joe Turner puts forward a different view. See a black day for fairtrade, in which Joe points out that only just over 1% of Nestlé chocolate will be fairtrade:

"Those multinationals can use fairtrade as an ethical crutch - deceiving consumers to the extent of their ethical credentials whilst continuing with their ways with more than 90% of all the raw materials they buy.  Nestle uses 370,000 tonnes of cocoa a year.  The Fairtrade Kit-kat deal represents 4,300 tonnes of cocoa.  Just over 1% of Nestlé chocolate will be fairtrade."





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