verbena-19

Nestle Corp. Awarded 'Fair Trade' Certification

Readers who are familiar with the 'Fairtrade' mark used to signify a [coffee] product made using fair trade practices will find this article, about the giant Nestle Corporation having been awarded this certification, of special interest.

"To give a Fairtrade mark to a company whose baby food trade systemically violates child rights on such a massive scale, contributing as it does to the deaths of millions of children,’ .... ‘makes an absolute mockery of what the public believes the Fairtrade mark stands for.’" Patti Rundall, Policy Director at Baby Milk Action

A New Internationalist Special Feature

"The wrong label

In a move that has astonished campaigners in the trade and global-justice movements, the giant Nestlé corporation has been awarded a ‘Fairtrade’ mark for a new brand of its coffee in Britain. David Ransom wonders why.

There’s never been anything quite like this. On the one hand, the world’s largest food corporation, with annual revenues in excess of $60 billion, is promoting its new ‘Partners’ Blend’ coffee in Britain as ‘Fairtrade’. On the other, ‘Partners’ Blend’ has joined the rest of its products on the target list of a long-established and active boycott campaign against Nestlé. Interested supporters of fair trade must be wondering what on earth is going on.

Harriet Lamb, Director of the Fairtrade Foundation – which provides the certification – is sanguine about ‘Partners’ Blend’. ‘This is a turning point for us and for the coffee growers,’ she says. ‘It’s also a turning point for the many people who support Fairtrade and have been pressing the major companies to offer Fairtrade coffees.’ She does not, however, suggest who these ‘many people’ may be."
Read full article from the New Internationalist

** For global news that matters, go to the New Internationalist website. Be sure to read "About NI", and I am sure you will like what they are "About". Also, take advantage of their special print subsription rates and subscribe to receive more indepth news and articles from around the globe about important issues that impact on everyone. This nascent news organisation and magazine is well worthy of your reading and support!

" New Internationalist is an independent not-for-profit communications cooperative. Our multi-award winning magazine, New Internationalist, brings to life the people, the ideas and the action in the fight for global justice." -- Editor, New Internationalist

posted by Annamarie at 9:26 PM