So Trader Joe’s finally got chocolate labelled fair trade — but it’s not fair trade certified – which makes it hard to tell what standards were used, exactly, in procuring this chocolate.
The little label on the front — “equi-trade” — is one that’s used by a choco company called Terra Nostra — so I’m guessing that’s where Trader Joe’s gets its fair trade labelled chocolate.
Terra Nostra notes on its website: “Although not registered Fair Trade, the Organic Farming practices in essence, provide farmers with sustainable development methods which in most cases not only translates to the farming methods but to the socially responsible aspects.”
Unfortunately, there’s really no transparency as to what these sustainable and socially responsible aspects may be — which is sort of the whole point of fair trade….
Part of me’s glad that Trader Joe’s got fair trade chocolate, but another part of me’s afraid the definition of fair trade’s getting murkier, and its ideals more confusing as more companies attempt to “self-certify,” for would-be ethical chocolate lovers –
Dear Green LA Girl:
All 100% ingredients used to make Trader Joe’s Equi-Trade bare are from Fair Trade certified sources, and unlike many other “Fair Trade Certified” items that only require 50% of their ingredients to be from Fair Trade sources, Trader Joe’s went the extra mile and instructed to have their bars be made with 100% of it’s ingredients used in this bar to be from Fair Trade Certified Sources.
The Equi Trade initiative was creatd to give back the premium collected in the name of Fair Trade from the wholesale price of the products Equi-Trade endorses back to the farmers and grower communities.
Other Fair Trade initiatives currently have this Fair Trade premium of approximately $0.10 per lb calculated on finished wholesale goods kept to cover administration and promotion expenses. Not so with Equitable Trade.
You will see more products with the infant initiative Equi-Trade logo, and it’s new version Equitable Trade as the non-profit association develops and solidifies.
We will add you to our email list to keep you updated on our initiative and thank you for highlighting this product on your blog.
Cordially,
Karlo Flores
Co-Founder Equitable Trade
Comment by Karlo — June 25, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
Hey Karlo — Thanks for the info. I do still have many of the same Qs raised in the post though — Basically, there doesn’t seem to be any way to get more info on Equitable Trade, aside from what you wrote in your comment. For ex, who are the members of this initiative? Is it just one company working on this, a la Intelligentsia with Direct Trade or Starbucks with CAFE practices, or is there a coalition of people? If a coalition, who are the members? And where are these fair trade certified cocoa farms located?
It seems from your email that you’ve chosen to source your chocolate from FLO certified farms, but have opted not to get TransFair USA certification on the US-end. Is that correct? From what you wrote, it seems the Equi-Trade logo’s attempting to serve as a sort of substitute for the TFUSA logo. However, while I totally would agree that the TFUSA certification has some downsides at the moment, I don’t even have enough info about Equi-Trade to figure out how it compares.
One of the downsides often pointed out re: TFUSA certification is that there’s little to no transparency requirement for the US-based companies, while the co-ops and farms in “third world” countries have to open up their books. Unfortunately, at the moment, Equi-Trade is even LESS informative and LESS transparent than TFUSA — which makes it v. difficult for the consumer to evaluate.
For example — The point about “giving back” more money to the choco workers rather than paying certification fees is a common refrain — that I hear often from big corps like Starbucks and increasingly, members of the big 4 for coffee. Certainly, Equi-Cert might be nothing like Starbucks and the like, and may really be putting more money in farmers’ pockets by having developed a more efficient, leaner certification system than TFUSA. Yet what the two (big corp and Equi-Trade) have in common — at the moment — is the lack of transparency — the sort of “trust me, we’re doing the right thing” dealio that people like me are increasingly less willing to trust.
So I was wondering: What exactly are the nitty gritties of this new certification system? WHO is doing the certifying? Equi-Cert must have SOME overheard — where does the money for this come from, if not from the sort of fees that TFUSA collects? Grants? Donations? All of this information needs to be avaliable for a true fair trade endeavor.
There are some v. basic Qs I have for your comment too. You said that 100% of the ingredients for these chocolates are fair trade certified (I take that to mean FLO certified at the source) — yet as we know, there’s no fair trade certified milk — meaning that your milk choco you have couldn’t be 100% fair trade certified…. Did you mean 100% of the certifiable ingredients are fair trade?
It does seem, of course, that Equi-Cert is a new initiative; perhaps these transparency issues are the next on your agenda to address. Are there plans to provide a way for the consumer to figure out — and verify — what exactly Equi-Cert is doing?
As of now, I’m left leaving a comment on my blog in the hopes that you’ll check back and give more details, Karlo — as you’ve left neither a website to check out nor email by which I can contact you directly. I hope Equi-Trade will get more responsive and more transparent –
Comment by Siel — June 26, 2007 @ 12:40 am
I like the packaging, though!
Comment by Jasmin — June 26, 2007 @ 10:49 am
Hi Siel:
Many good questions and I will answer the ones that I can here, I ask for your patience on the rest as will be answered in due course. As I said before this initiative is at its infancy.
Paragraph 1. There are 2 founding companies behind Equitable Trade, KFM Foods and Essential Living Foods. A collation is being formed by members that want to join, the structure is being set with a comittee. Some or the Farms are located in Ghana, Peru, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Dominican Republic.
Paragraph 2.- We created our own initiative for what happens to the funds collected in the name of Fair Trade from wholesale. You will have the info for comparison as it becomes avaliable in the website being worked on.
Paragraph 3 – Website, FAQ’s, etc are being established as we speak. Transparency is there we are setting it up to communicate what our initiative is doing and how it operates.
Paragraph 4 – The Fair Trade certification for raw materials is on hand. The initiatives for the funds collected at wholesale are informed to the farmers communities, they are asked to vote on how the funds are to be used within their communities. All this is being documented and will, in time (expect within next 6 months), be up and running to clearly communicate this to the world. We will be judged by our actions, and we will be very happy to share our achievements.
Paragraph 5. The nitty gritty of the certifying system will be open and avaliable to all. Currently it is very straight forward. as explained in my first posting. The overhead of Equitable Trade at this time is comming out of the pockets of its founding members, KFM Foods and Essential Living Foods.
Paragraph 6. All raw materials that are certifiable Fair Trade are. The milk powder is Swiss and it is considered Intrinsically Fair Trade as it comes from a country where national regulations make the products socially concious.
Paragraph 7. Yes there is transparency that will be communicated. Consumers will have acess to all info.
Paragraph 8. The website related to Equitable Trade is being developed. My email has been posted in the reply, I did not put it in before as I did not want it published and have to answer questions that will be answered on the website. I think I have been very responsive, the transparency you request we all want to have avaliable for you and for all.
For now we have a small, clear and direct initiative that has been supported by our friends in Switzerland and visionary Trader Joe’s, let’s call it Phase 1. Phase II of this initiative is where we are at, and is evolving very well. We have only been doing it for a few months yet the foundations are being laid to make clear, distinct and measurable changes in peoples lives that supply us with the raw goods to make our finished products.
Please don’t consider it rude or evasive if I do not post more in the next months, I have to complete this initiative and it’s many intricacies so that you, and anybody else can acess the information to get the answers to their questions.
Thank you for all you good questions and I ask for your patience as Phase II structure is completed.
Cordially,
Karlo
Comment by Karlo — June 26, 2007 @ 11:23 am
Siel,
Kudos again for drawing attention to the little details that elude many people’s attention.
As you – and some of your readers – know I, too, worry about “just trust us” claims. Also, a red flag goes up everytime yet another company says “we buy from Fair Trade Certified sources”. It tells us the “who” – sort of – and impresses most consumers. But it does not tell us if the cocoa or sugar was bought at Fair Trade prices, or if affordable credit was provided, and so on.
From reviewing Terra Nostra’s site, and that of Essential Living Foods I sense that these are serious, reputable people, but for better or worse, their message for now looks alot like that of other firms who are using the right buzz words, but who are in fact cutting corners.
I’ll look forward to when all the information is up on the web.
By the way, just to make things even more confusing, check out http://www.equitrade.org
Comment by Rodney North — June 26, 2007 @ 7:54 pm
Thanks Karlo, for your thoughtful response. I’ll look forward to seeing your website once I launches. But I did want to highlight one issue that troubles me in the argument re: costs of certification.
Namely, I’m often a bit confused by the way the overhead issue relating to certification gets framed. When companies decide NOT to get their products certified fair trade by TransFair USA, it’s framed as a move to avoid siphoning off money that should be going to farmers as opposed to TFUSA. Your first comment — “The Equi Trade initiative was creatd to give back the premium collected in the name of Fair Trade from the wholesale price of the products Equi-Trade endorses back to the farmers and grower communities” — is an example of this.
Yet when these same companies start their own initiatives — which obviously entail costs of their own — the cost of certification’s framed as an overhead cost that the company swallows up altruistically. This again is evidenced by your comment that “The overhead of Equitable Trade at this time is comming out of the pockets of its founding members, KFM Foods and Essential Living Foods.”
Since the money that’d go to the cost of certification for US products — whether self-certification, a new certification program, or TFUSA — is paid by the company (which can then choose whether or not to pass the costs on to the farmers, regardless of method of certification chosen), I find it’s a bit disingenious to frame one effort as an altruistic one that benefits farmers at the expense of companies and the other a method that necessarily takes money away from farmers….
Certainly one could argue that a new certification effort’s being created in order to LOWER the cost of certification (choco companies often complain about TFUSA’s high fees). But that’s very different from creating a sort of pro-farmer / anti-farmer dichotomy in the financial argument re: certification, don’t you think?
If there are other variables I’m overlooking in this dichotomy I see, I do hope you’ll point them out to me –
Comment by Siel — June 27, 2007 @ 7:33 pm