This presentation gives an overview on the advantages and shortcomings of the voluntary sustainability standards Fairtrade International, Utz and Rainforest Alliance in the cocoa sector.
Category: Fair and sustainable trade
Delhaize offers some seventy fair trade products, mainly coffee, tea, sugar, cookies, vegetables and fruit. At ‘Sinterklaas’ in December and Easter, the supermarket chain also offers chocolate figurines. In addition to fair trade products under Delhaize’s own brand name you can also buy products from Oxfam, Candico and Ben & Jerry’s. Delhaize has worked with Fairtrade Belgium for more than 25 years and continuous support to sustainable trade is an essential part of its strategy.
When Didier Clarisse and his wife took over an artisanal waffle bakery, they wanted to expand the business, but it soon became clear that a large industrial business was not their piece of cake. Instead, they ventured into a quality approach. After exploring the market they switched to organic waffles and shortly after to fair trade too.
‘Give back what you take’ sums up New Tree’s mission. This Belgian company does not just want to make chocolate; it wants to make healthy chocolate with surprising flavours. In exchange for what the planet gives us the company advocates a greener and fairer world. We already know that chocolate is healthy, but that chocolate can be responsible and sustainable is new and requires some explanation.
Large companies are about making profits, and nothing else. Supposedly. Java, one of the largest food service companies in Belgium, is different and combines entrepreneurship with a conviction that wealth must be shared globally. This family business does this mainly by selling fair trade coffee which it roasts in its state-of-the-art sustainable roasting facilities in Rotselaar, Belgium.
When you ask how many honest products Carrefour offers, you get one back: What do you mean by honest products? The supermarket chain does not see fair trade as a separate product line. For both the products from the southern and northern hemisphere, they must be developed with respect for the producer, planet and customer.
This study, commissioned by the Trade for Development Centre (TDC) and realized by Dedicated between December 21, 2015 and January 29, 2016, attempted to draw up a statement of condition on the presence of sustainable products within the assortments of major Belgian supermarkets.
