As I’ve mentioned here before, the industry juggernauts are beginning to notice. They’re beginning to tap into the growing target group that is the Fairtrade consumer. It’s been creeping in for a long time, ever since the pioneer brands (Traidcraft, Cafédirect, Divine, etc.) created enough of a presence to force supermarkets to realize we exist: we who care who produces, and what goes into, the food we eat.

So in the UK we began to see Tesco and ASDA branded Fairtrade-certified goods. At the time these changes were seen as a breakthrough, a sign that at last consumers were having an influence. The idealists among us imagined that eventually we would visit a supermarket and not have a slave-produced alternative, that it would all be fairly traded and that we would even hear reports of fewer countries classified ‘developing’, as they gain economic power themselves. But the supermarkets continued to stock the other products and they continued to fly off the shelves.

This year we have seen a spate of the big players decide to accommodate the ethical consumer in their product ranges: Cadbury have committed their Dairy Milk line to certification, Mars have announced that by 2020 they will be more ethical, and Kraft Foods, who want to buy out Cadbury, are taking steps towards working with the Rainforest Alliance. Sadly, on Monday when Nestlé announced that their four finger Kit Kat will be Fairtrade certified we got another whiff of the target group mentality – “we’ll create a line which is Fairtrade, so that we can tap into that niche.”

When this fair trade journey began, the goal was to play the capitalist game in a way that would benefit the poor. It wasn’t about charity: for people to throw money at the poor while they pretended to be interested in the product. We actually wanted better products that would be desirable for more than just their sense of conscience. That’s how Cafédirect came to be, and why Nestlé (Nescafé) were forced to pay a little more for their coffee (because apparently the farmers were giving their best produce to the highest bidder).

With this in mind, why does it leave a nasty taste in our mouths when we hear of a Fairtrade version of the Kit Kat, or a Fairtrade line of Nescafé?

Maybe we were hoping that the soul-less superpowers would grow souls? Or perhaps there was an idea that we would be proven right and that the oppressors would repent of their wrong doings and confess to being modern-day slave barons?

Of course, there’s no reason why Nestle can’t take the profits from their Fairtrade line and invest them in another less-than-ethical enterprise. There’s nothing stopping Mars from back pedaling before 2020 (as they have before). But, as Stephanie Celt points out, there are 8,000 farmers who will be affected, for the better, by this (Kit Kat) decision.

We must celebrate this, but also recognize that there will always be people who face injustice, and it is always our responsibility to fight it. Wearing our “consumer” hats and fighting on an economic level is not our only option. As George Monbiot reminded us recently:

“We cannot change the world by changing [only] our buying habits…our power comes from acting as citizens – demanding political change – not acting as consumers.”

And so the fight goes on. Yes, we’ve won a tiny fraction of Nestlé’s overall output, and yes, we will continue to long for a day when their whole product line represents our consciences. But until then we must allow these small victories to fuel our steady movement forwards.

This post is part of a larger debate on the mainstreaming of Fairtrade curated by Shared Interest on their Blog. Click here to read more.

(photo by Ahron De Leeuw)

Tagged as: discussion, fairtrade, mainstream, Nestle