Fair Trade: Can your choice of chocolate change the world?
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ALIYA ZAIDI
Chocolate. It’s the universal guilty pleasure. But with the fair trade movement rapidly gaining ground in the last 10 years, it’s now easier than ever to eat the good stuff without feeling all that sinful. Aliya Zaidi looks at the case for buying fair trade chocolate, what it actually means and how it can fit in with Islamic principles of equality, fairness and justice for all.
So what is fair trade? Well, it’s primarily about achieving better trading conditions between companies in developed countries and producers in developing nations. Some of the goals of fair trade include getting a better price for exporters and giving workers access to decent working conditions. Fair trade promotes higher social and environmental standards, so often fair trade products are also organic.
“Give full measure and full weight in justice, and wrong not people in respect of their goods.” (Qur’an 11:85)
“Eat not up each other’s property by unfair and dishonest means.” (Qur’an 4:29)
In the UK, when you buy products with the FairtradeTM mark, it means that the product has met certain ethical standards, and that a minimum price was paid for the ingredients. Globally, the World Fair Trade Organization logo is used for branding companies that show 100% commitment to fair trade in their business activities.
For example, farmers need to pay various fees in order to achieve FairtradeTM certification. The cost can be in the thousands, and not all farmers can afford to pay this.
Secondly, not all of the ingredients in a FairtradeTM labelled bar of chocolate have to be fairly traded. For example, Dairy Milk’s packaging says it’s made with “at least 70% FairtradeTM ingredients”. There are other processed ingredients added to the chocolate, such as vegetable fat and flavourings which cannot be FairtradeTM certified.
Furthermore, when cocoa is bought in bulk (to make mass-produced chocolate), it may get mixed up with other non-FairtradeTM cocoa beans. So how much of your FairtradeTM labelled bar of chocolate actually contains fairly traded cocoa, is a question mark.
Luxury chocolatier, Holly Caulfield of Chocoholly notes: “Every choice you make when buying chocolate will make a difference to our health and our environment. I always choose organic over fair trade because it contains no harmful pesticides and has not poisoned the environment. And the farmer gets paid more as well.”
So the next time you’re in the mood to savour that rich, velvety goodness, it’s worth remembering your choices can make a lot of difference to the lives of some of the world’s poorest people. And given that ethically produced chocolate is usually healthier, less processed and just tastes awesome, everybody wins.