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Fair trade goes mainstream
"We made a business decision to absorb the extra costs, It goes back to our Quaker roots. We believe in doing well by doing good."
- Alison Ward, who was Cadbury's head of corporate social responsibility
Cadbury brings fair-trade Dairy Milk chocolate bar to Canada -- without charging a premium price.
In the highlands of Guatemala, coffee farmers in 11 villages now receive $2 a pound for their green beans instead of the 30 cents they were paid previously. Equally important, their village cooperatives receive $6.50 a pound to use for schools, wells and other village improvements.
In Ghana, thousands of cocoa growers are guaranteed prices that will finally raise them well above subsistence level. Their villages, too, are prospering from their share of cocoa revenues.
In factories in Asia, workers sewing soccer balls know they will take home enough money to feed their families and not be forced to labour under impossible sweatshop conditions.
And it's all thanks to fair trade.