FED: Chocaholics to snack with a clear conscience with Fairtrade

AAP General News (Australia)
08-26-2009
FED: Chocaholics to snack with a clear conscience with Fairtrade

By Britt Smith

SYDNEY, Aug 26 AAP - Chocaholics in Australia will soon have a good reason to tuck
into a chocolate treat without feeling guilty.

From next year, they will be able to snack with a clear conscience when the nation's
most popular chocolate bar, Cadbury Dairy Milk, becomes Fair-trade certified.

The move, which has equality campaigners rejoicing, will quadruple the amount of cocoa
bought from west Africa under the sustainable farming scheme.

About 40,000 Ghanaian cocoa farmers will benefit immediately, and hundreds of thousands
more will also be better off as the plan rolls out.

Cadbury, the leading chocolate manufacturer in Australia, expects to achieve the certification
by next Easter.

The decision will transform Fair-trade chocolate from a niche product to a mainstream
staple, progress which has been welcomed by humanitarian campaigners, including World
Vision Australia chief executive Tim Costello.

"As consumers it is far more convenient for us to suspend belief and keep eating chocolate,
but the uncomfortable truth is that most chocolate manufacturers still cannot guarantee
that their chocolate is free from child labour," Mr Costello said.

"Fair cocoa pricing is the difference between children wielding a machete in the cocoa
field or a pencil in the classroom."

The Stop the Traffik Australia Coalition says it is estimated tens of thousands of
children are trapped working in slave labour conditions on cocoa plantations and farms
in Ghana, the west-African nation where Cadbury will source its cocoa from ethically run
plantations.

Fair-trade is an independently-audited system guaranteeing farmers in developing countries
a fair minimum price for their produce, and prohibits slave labour.

It also provides investment for social, environmental and economic development for
their communities.

Cadbury estimates the switch will assist about 500,000 farmers over the next ten years,
and triple the amount of Fair-trade products sold throughout Australia.

Cadbury Australia and New Zealand managing director Mark Callaghan said he was extremely
proud of the move, bringing ethical chocolate to the masses at no extra cost.

"It's Cadbury Dairy Milk with the same taste, same cost, but extra ethics," he said.

Fair-trade executive director Steve Knapp hailed the decision as a "landmark step"

that will help impoverished farmers create a better future, improve living standards for
their children.

"This announcement sets a new standard for the mainstream chocolate industry in Australia
and will open up new Fair-trade opportunities for cocoa farmers in our corner in the world,"

he said.

AAP bzs/hn/maur

KEYWORD: CHOCOLATE (PIX, FACTBOX AVAILABLE)

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