A further sign that fair trade products are entering mainstream UK
business came last month as the food giant Nestlé launched its first
Fairtrade certified coffee.
The new instant coffee brand, Nescafe Partners Blend, now on sale in
the UK, has been awarded the Fairtrade mark certifying that it meets
the Fairtrade Foundation’s social, economic and environmental
standards.
Nestlé’s move follows hard on the heels of Kraft Foods’ decision to
bring to the UK market instant coffee sourced from farms certified by
the Rainforest Alliance (EP7, issue 5, p1).
Many supermarkets, including Tesco and Somerfield, are now stocking
fair trade products at prices close to those of conventional brands,
and the Co-operative Group recently switched all its own-brand chocolate bars
to the Fairtrade label. More than 1000 Fairtrade catering and retail
products from 150 companies are now on sale. UK sales of products with
the Fairtrade mark reached £140million ($245m) last year and have been
growing for five years by about 40 per cent a year. However, although
18 per cent of roast and ground coffee is Fairtrade, only four per cent
of UK instant coffee is certified.
Harriet Lamb, Fairtrade Foundation executive director, claimed Nestlé’s
decision was ‘a turning point in the UK’ that would ‘bring a new wave
of coffee drinkers to Fairtrade’.
Alastair Sykes, Nestlé’s chief executive in the UK and Ireland, said
the new brand had been developed largely as a result of customer
pressure and increased demand for Fairtrade products. He said internal
Nestlé market research had suggested the product will appeal to more
mainstream consumers, who, ‘while not currently regular purchasers of
Fairtrade coffee, are predisposed to Fairtrade and/or sustainable
products’.
War on Want and some other campaign groups have greeted Nestlé’s entry
with scepticism, but Cafédirect welcomed it, even though the fair trade
coffee company could lose business as a result. ‘We see it as a good
move,’ said Phil King, Cafédirect’s finance director. ‘We hope that it
won’t take sales from us, but will appeal to a wider range of
customers.’
Nestlé, which has a £38bn turnover and is the world’s largest direct
buyer of coffee, says it may launch other fair trade products if the
new brand is a success.
The coffee in the new blend comes from five small farmers’
co-operatives in El Salvador and Ethiopia, who, like many smallholders
supplying the world coffee market, have experienced hardship because of
price volatility and the severe price slump of recent years.
Nestlé will spend £1m to promote the brand and another £1m to support health and education projects for its coffee growers.
Farmers will be paid a guaranteed minimum price, plus a premium that
the local community can use for business or social development projects
or to diversify into other crops and animal husbandry.
