A week or so ago Nestle announced that from January the 4 finger Kitkat would be Fairtrade (link)…which of course for people who Boycott Nestle (largely over their Baby Milk scandels which still continue today) flashes up an ethical dilema…however I don’t think it’s time to start buying from the company who are rated 0.5 out of 20 for ethicalness on ethicalconsumer.org.

Let’s take a look at Nestle as a whole…the company own hundreds of confectionary products, a wide range of instant Nescafe Coffee and not to mention Loreal, Garnier, Go-Cat and Felix (to name a few) yet out of those hundreds of products how many are fairtrade? 1 at the moment and 2 in January.

Nestle’s Partner’s Blend Fairtrade coffee has been available for a good few years now yet where supermarkets have made large amounts of their coffee fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance Certified (as have many other companies) Nestle have done nothing making Partner’s Blend nothing more than a flag they can wave saying ‘Look at us, we support Fairtrade…buy from us’.

If they truly believed in Fairtrade they would be managed to convert the whole Nestle range by now…and it’s the same with the Kitkat.

The 2 Fairtrade products out of hundreds from Nestle is effectively saying ‘We’re going to pay some of our farmers properly and look after communities but we don’t give a crap about the others’.

Cadbury are working on making their whole range Fairtrade and have committed to that…nothing of the sort from Nestle.

So in conclusion Nestle aren’t very nice still! Fact.