I wrote an open letter to the Fairtrade Foundation recently in response to their decision to allow Cadbury to continue to use the Fairtrade mark on their packaging despite no longer being Fairtrade Certified. If enough people join together in unison we can convince the Fairtrade Foundation to stand up for the ethics they were originally founded on and #DropCadbury
"To whom it may concern,I read with dismay last night an article in the Independent Business News section titled 'Cadbury withdraws from Fairtrade chocolate scheme but keeps logo on packaging' (28th November 2016).
As an ethically-led company who has been licensing the Fairtrade logo from yourselves for over a decade, who have to submit all our certified products to your stringent criteria and forward the percentage of profits required, we are astounded and not a little upset at this recent revelation.
We perceive that you started damaging the reputation of the Fairtrade Foundation when you started courting multinational money (albeit for the best of intentions) and diluted your distinctive and highly ethical message by allowing Cadbury and Nestlé (never paragons of virtue in the food chain) to use your mark.
Then we saw Cadbury introduce palm oil, replacing cocoa solids - rather a cynical move when chocolate is what consumers expect in a chocolate bar. I believe they were being disingenuous when they said that this was a customer led move 'making the chocolate more enjoyable', nothing to do with reducing production costs obviously (irony).
As a company we have been part of the Nestlé boycott campaign for decades and were very disappointed that you embraced that company with its many well documented unethical stances. These are the firms that you have chosen to ally yourself with - and obviously now rely upon to pay your wages.
It appears to us, that by jumping into bed with these multinationals you have damaged your credibility, caused a loss of confidence in your mark and are in severe danger of engendering a crisis of faith in the Fairtrade consumer. We, as part of your original customer base, the people who shared your ideals and helped you build your endeavour to the size it is - now have pause to reflect on your governance and await your response to the backlash that is unfolding. The 'fudge' of placing the mark on the rear of the packaging will only affect people - like us - who realise the premium paid by those who have the logo on the front.
This will not affect end consumers - merely confuse and undermine the message that you have been careful to champion over the years.This latest move further impacts your reputation and we believe may signal the end of your relevance in certifying an ethical approach to aspects of the food chain. We believe that this issue will severely damage consumer confidence in the use of your registered trade mark.
Without clear action on your part, distancing yourselves and your logo from being used by these conglomerates for their gain - and our (and the planet's food producers') loss, we will have to re-consider our participation in this scheme; paying a premium price to support a despoiled mark.
Yours faithfully,
After receiving an altogether nodescript and seemingly 'standard' letter in response I followed with:
Thank you for your reply to my email on your Cocoa Life partnership.
I however note that you have in fact, not addressed any of the substantive points in my email - which refer to the degradation of your own 'ethical' standards . We are very happy that you wish to work with Cadbury/Mondelez to increase sustainable cocoa but giving away your Marque like this does us and others in our position no favours.
You may understand that local aspects of this tragedy started unfolding for us during the first decade of the Millennium. Our worker co-operative membership well remembers Keynsham being closed in 2007 to much local disgust. Then we all heard the 'heartfelt' promises on Kraft's bid proposal commitment to 'keeping the Somerdale factory of this brand open', before Cadbury was bought out in 2010. As I'm sure you recall, it was mere months before it all closed down - which, as most of us suspected, was actually always on the cards.
Cadbury, our initially Quaker-ethics based brand that we were all rightfully proud, then continued its rapid fall from grace; via brand acquisition, relocation, reformulation - in no-one's best interest, excepting the bottom line. The knowledge that during 2014, Mondelez Chief Exec. Irene Rosenfeld's pay and benefits increased by 50% to £16.5 million, illustrates this most vividly.
We have recently seen Green and Blacks go non-organic in the US - a first for that 'hero' brand - profit again seeming to trump quality. This indicates how a supposedly 'ethical' and ring-fenced sub-brand can be affected when subjected to the will of the multinational marketplace, strangely it never seems to improve matters, rather it can be generally typified as a 'race-to-the-bottom'.
You cite the parent company reassurances in your one-size-fits-all letter and ask us to trust. Unfortunately we seem to have heard much of this rhetoric before - especially here in Bristol, so close to where this great brand started in 1824. We have seen promises broken - and local people have suffered; with this latest move we believe you are confusing all your customers, cheapening the marque and potentially condoning future suffering on a much wider scale than you might imagine.
Your partners in this new scheme are adamant about many aspects of their business - sadly, we only have trust in their words, where they maintain that their first priority is to their shareholders, their 'fiduciary duty' to return ever larger profits. To our knowledge this has never been a system that has helped improve the lot of workers and farmers at the furthest end of the food chain - and generally it accelerates the exact opposite. 'Trickle down economics' simply doesn't happen in our experience.
Here at Essential we continue striving to maintain an ethical approach to providing consumers' access to high quality foods, while ensuring all those involved in its production are fairly rewarded. Whether accredited with the Fairtrade Foundation or not, our brand adheres to the co-op founding principles we stand by, and we always aim to ensure equity and prosperity for all. While multinationals tweak recipes, relocate factories and seek out lower tax-thresholds; there never appears to be any guarantee of an ability to hold such organisations to account. They can seemingly always hold their 'tied-hands' aloft, cite 'shareholder profits' and carry on regardless. We appreciate that attempting to bring an ethical dimension to multinationals as large as Kraft - or Mondelez as it is now - is fraught with difficulty. We wonder whether it is in fact an impossible task. Hence, giving them the Marque without being able to set real criteria (we don't believe 'holding to account' is either the same or as certain in the long term) means that you have done the consumer and producer the largest disservice. With choice, people can use their wallets to choose ethical products and support companies who truly are going the extra mile and making a real difference; when everything has the same marque - such a logo loses any meaning and is rendered a superfluous platitude.
We ask you again to please re-think your response to this latest Cadbury initiative, we await a meaningful reply.
Yours sincerely,
Received a fair amount of coverage e.g. this in the largest Trade publication of our sector (Natural Products), Coop news etc as well as the largest Social Media response the co-operative (Essential Trading is a worker co-operative) has ever received..
Lesson: It's always worth writing a letter..
I'm surprised you haven't got any response to this. (OR maybe not, this is steemit afterall)
but I did not know about this obvious misstep by the gatekeepers of the "fairtrade" branding.
Nothing means anything anymore.
Natural means not natural.
Organic means covered in pesticides.
What's to do?
Thanks for the response. :)
Newbie to Steemit - so still coming to terms with new sets of alerts & such.
Well - I posted on their Faecbook, it was tweeted, we posted on our social media - and (because I've been working with the FT Foundation for some years) I sent to the dozen email addresses I had.
One bland response - and little else.. not that I expected anything meaningful - in these days fo doublespeak and gaslighting, facts and alternative facts are equal anyhow! lol Did get some press and international support.. but at the end of the day it's the consumer and the power of the wallet (+ information) that will bring this teetering pile of... down.
On the positive - people are getting informed now - information is power! Peace!