As you may or may not have read on this post last week for Fairtrade fortnight’s ‘Take A Step’ campaign I’ve decided to only buy Fairtrade chocolate bars from now on and e-mailed Cadbury, Sainsburys and Mars to tell them and encourage them to introduce more Fairtrade products.

So far both Cadbury and Sainsburys have responded (I feel like there’s more authenticity in the Sainsbury response) but here are the responses:

Sainsburys

Dear Mr Tiddy

Thanks for your email about our Fairtrade products.

We’ve been concerned about socially responsible sourcing for many years, and we’re proud to be the UK’s leading Fairtrade retailer.

In 1998, we became the first UK retailer to develop our own Code of Conduct for Socially Responsible Sourcing.  The Code sets out the labour standards we expect our suppliers to meet, including fair terms of trading, protection of children, worker health and safety, equal opportunities, freedom of association, freedom of employment, hours of work and wages.

Every banana we sell, and all our Red Label tea is Fairtrade.  By the end of 2010 all our own brand tea, roast and ground coffee will be Fairtrade, returning around £2 million to developing countries each year.  Our annual sales of Fairtrade products now amount to £139million

Many producers in the developing world find it difficult to meet Fairtrade standards without some help. Our Fair Development Fund helps more farmers and growers to sell their produce as Fairtrade.  We made an initial commitment of £1million and this should provide a real boost to the livelihoods of producers, especially in Africa.

We continue to support the national Fairtrade Fortnight, which takes place in February and March of each year.

You can find more information on our approach to socially responsible sourcing by visiting our corporate website at www.­j-sainsbury.co.uk.

I’ve also passed your comments about making our chocolate products Fairtrade to our development team.  They’ll discuss it at their next review, and if it’s a possibility I’m sure they’ll do their best to make it happen.

We appreciate you taking the time to get in touch with us, and look forward to seeing you in store again soon.

Many thanks for contacting us regarding labour conditions on cocoa farms in West Africa.  Like you we condemn child and forced labour and want it to be eradicated.

While we do not own or directly control any farms, we recognize that this is a complex problem and will take all involved – growers, exporters, non-government organisations, national and local governments, and manufacturers – working together to address it.

We see our partnership with Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance one part of the solution to this situation and in addition we have a number of other significant investments and programmes which are outlined below:

Kraft Foods Cocoa Investment

• Since 2001, Kraft Foods has been working with the chocolate and cocoa industry on a multi-year, multi-stakeholder effort to reduce child labour and forced labour in the cocoa sector in West Africa.  This effort has been done in partnership with Senator Tom Harkin, Representative Elliott Engel, and the governments of Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire.  The industry will have spent more than $75 million on surveys, remediation, and development programs in the sector between 2005-2010.  The Harkin-Engel Protocol has been the overarching structure to support this effort and has become a model of public-private sector cooperation in an agricultural setting.

• In 2002, we helped establish the International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), an independent foundation aimed at eliminating the worst forms of child labour and forced labour on cocoa farms.  By working community by community, the ICI is raising awareness and seeing a reduction of hazardous child labour in cocoa farming in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana.

• We’ve been working with the Rainforest Alliance™ since 2003 — started with coffee and expanded into cocoa in 2005.  We chose to partner with Rainforest Alliance because it’s rooted in sound agricultural and social programming — helping ensure farmers and their families get fair wages, decent housing, access to schools, health care, transportation and training.  Our partnership has been growing over several years — in 2009 we were the world’s largest buyer of coffee and cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.

• Since 2008, we’ve been empowering farmer organizations through the Cadbury Cocoa Partnership  where our aim is to create thriving cocoa communities.   In 2009, we achieved Fairtrade certification for Cadbury Dairy Milk in the UK and Ireland. We have expanded this commitment and now Fairtrade Cadbury Dairy is available in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada.  Under the Fairtrade system farmers receive a guaranteed minimum price for their product and a Fairtrade social premium.  We’ve quadrupled the volume of cocoa sold under Fairtrade terms in Ghana, helping generate £2.7m in Fairtrade premiums to help improve farming communities’ livelihoods.

• We are also a member of the World Cocoa Foundation (WCF), which aims to help cocoa-farming families develop and manage effective, sustainable farming practices.  Examples of WCF activities supported by us include The Sustainable Tree Crops Program (STCP) and Empowering Cocoa Households with Opportunities and Education Solutions (ECHOES).  STCP focuses on the social and economic well being of cocoa farmers.  ECHOES expands opportunities for youth living in cocoa-growing communities.

• In February 2009, Kraft Foods, along with other companies and organizations, joined with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in a $90 million program to boost the income and productivity of cocoa and cashew farmers in Africa.  The projects aim to strengthen the long-term viability of the West African cocoa and cashew industries through education and market opportunities.

Kraft Foods is the largest purchaser of Fairtrade and Rainforest Alliance cocoa and coffee.  Our commitment continues, in 2010 we purchased roughly 19,000 metric tons of Fairtrade cocoa and approximately 11,000 metric tons of Rainforest cocoa. In total we have paid £2.7 million in social premiums to Kuapa Kokoo the Fairtrade co-operative in Ghana.

Thank you for taking the time to let us know how important this matter is to you.  Please be assured that Kraft Foods remains committed to working both with others and independently to improve living and working conditions on farms to help farmers and their families have a better life.