Montélimar is known as the city of nougat, but the origin of the nut sweet lies in ancient Persia, where nuts and honey were plentiful. Thanks to the Arabs it became known in Mediterranean countries, but it never really made it to Northern Europe. The man who introduced nougat in Belgium 90 years ago, Vital, gave his name to the company which a few years ago added fair trade nougat to its assortment.
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.
Cavalier, a family business, has been manufacturing chocolate with no added sugars for exactly twenty years. First, it did so with the alternative sweetener maltitol, and more recently mainly with stevia. When the product range was renewed, Cavalier resolutely went fair trade.
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.
With Colruyt, Bio-Planet and Okay, the Colruyt Group is one of the strongholds of Belgium’s retail sector. Does this holding which focuses on growth and profit have any attention for sustainable trade? Yes, indeed, so it seems. In addition to its supply of fair trade products, the Colruyt Group launched ‘value chain projects’ a few years ago in an attempt to ‘sustainabilify’ the producer-to-consumer value chain.
After petrol, coffee is the world’s biggest export product. It is almost exclusively cultivated in developing countries. The coffee trade therefore has a huge impact on the working and living conditions of local coffee producers, their families and on nature, according to Beyers’website. Beyers is a coffee roaster which offers a broad certified coffee assortment, representing 40% of its sales.
Every year, millions of kilos of Puro Fairtrade Coffee are sold around the world. For CEO Frans Van Tilborg, entrepreneurship does not only mean making a profit, but also caring about people and the planet. Part of Puro’s turnover is therefore spent on buying portions of endangered rainforest, with the aim of protecting it in the long term. Since its launch ten years ago, Puro has already acquired an area of equatorial forest equivalent to more than 10,000 football pitches.
