ecoexplorer.co.uk

Green & Blacks have finally decided to make all their chocolate products Fairtrade. Hooray.

Their Maya Gold chocolate and cocoa powder has been Fairtrade from the start - the Guardian article claims Maya Gold was the first Fairtrade product to go on sale in Britain 15 years ago - but the rest of the range hasn’t.

The skeptic in me wonders whether some companies make only one product in a large range Fairtrade because once a label is linked with Fairtrade consumers assume it applies across the board. Cadbury have done a great job in making their Dairy Milk Fairtrade but what about all their other products?

Green & Black’s took some criticism from the ethical brigade in 2005 when they signed up to a takeover by big boys Cadbury Schweppes.

I asked their customer services department about their Fairtrade policy last year. They didn’t explain why they couldn’t make the entire range Fairtrade, but said: “Using the formal Fairtrade system is one way of helping improve the livelihoods of farmers, but this is not the only way.”

At the time they said they had “no plans to further extend our Fairtrade range but will continue to trade fairly with our suppliers.”

Wonder what changed.