Fairtrade Ireland tell us that last year, as in recent years, the growth in sales has been driven by companies converting well-known brands to Fairtrade. The most recent product to announce a conversion to Fairtrade is Maltesers, which will be on shelves by April this year. Maltesers now joins other iconic chocolate products like Cadbury Dairy Milk and Nestle Kit Kat, and all of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in announcing a switch over to Fairtrade.
However, the recession has hit Fairtrade Certified coffee sales which are down 6% by value compared to 2010. “Obviously Fairtrade isn’t completely immune to the economic downturn as we can see with the small decline in sales for Fairtrade coffee” said Peter Gaynor, Executive Director, with Fairtrade Ireland, “we and our supporters need to encourage businesses and institutions like colleges, to stick with Fairtrade. Interestingly though, even with coffee, it’s not all bad news as The Insomnia Coffee Company saw their sales of Fairtrade coffee grow by 2%” added Gaynor. The vast bulk of the 650 tonnes of Fairtrade Certified coffee sold in Ireland are by five companies; Bewley’s, Insomnia, Java Republic , Robert Roberts and Starbucks. Here at Arusha Fair Trade we are proud to offer coffee from Fairtrade Pioneers Cafe Direct.
On a further positive note, sales of Fairtrade Certified bananas grew by an estimated 25% in 2011 to 3,250 tonnes and the bulk of these sales are with just three companies; Global Fruit, Fyffes, and Smyths.
In separate developments Fairtrade Ireland expects to make in-roads into non-traditional, non-food Fairtrade Certified product categories like cosmetics and cotton.
The Swedish natural cosmetics company, Oriflame, which has its research and development department in Bray in Co Wicklow, will be launching its new Fairtrade Certified, EcoBeauty range, of three cosmetic products in Ireland during Fairtrade Fortnight 2012. The EcoBeauty range will be sold in over 60 countries word-wide and will bring significant benefits to small farmers of Shea nuts and coconuts in Burkina Faso and India. This innovative new product range was developed by the Oriflame R&D department in Ireland for its global distribution channels.
Burkina Faso in West Africa also features in a new report published by Fairtrade Ireland, ‘Cotton on To Fairtrade’, illustrating the difficulties that millions of small-scale cotton farmers in developing countries face gaining access to rich markets. Due to subsidies for wealthy country producers of cotton in the EU and US, it is estimated that four West African countries, Burkina Faso, Mali, Benin and Chad lose up to US$250 million per annum in income from their cotton sales. These four West African countries, though small in terms of global cotton production, at only 4%, nevertheless depend significantly on cotton for their export earnings – cotton accounts for about 60% of Burkina Faso’s export earnings.
During Fairtrade Fortnight 2012, Sigfredo Benitez, from the Cooperativa Los Pinos coffee coop, in El Salvador; and Samatha Valluri from the CHETNA group in India, who work with small scale cotton farmers will visit many of the Fairtrade Towns groups around Ireland.
Ireland has the highest number of Fairtrade Towns groups per capita of any country in the world. There are now 47 officially recognised Fairtrade Towns and Cities that have met the Fairtrade Towns criteria. Naas will be officially recognised a Fairtrade Town during Fairtrade Fortnight. And 30 more towns are seeking Fairtrade Town status – adding up to a total of 78 volunteer Fairtrade Town groups around the country.
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