BTW — It’s also great to hear from a 100% fair trade company like Equal Exchange applauding the fair trade actions of a major corp. as opposed to seeing it as unwelcome competition :)

autopilot — Good luck with the GMAT! And also — Have you met The Worsted Witch in NYC?

Reason #1) Along with us, and Alter-Eco, Wholesome is one of the first companies to offer FT sugar AND they’re HUGE, as in they’re a divison of Imperial Sugar, the largest sugar co. in the country. This move towards FT by the biggest company in a category stands in very sharp contrast to how large corporations in other categories (coffee, cocoa, tea) reacted, which was to either ignore or attack FT, or both, and hope that it would go away. In other categories small companies brought out FT products, and for YEARS the big multi-nationals sat on the sidelines, said that FT was unfeasible, etc. For example, if you don’t count Cadbury’s purchase of Green & Black, the chocolate corporations still treat FT like its radioactive.

For the record, FT sugar didn’t even show up in the US market until 2002, and not as a stand alone product until late 2004 (when we introduced organic FT sugar packets) and only 6 months later Wholesome started introducing FT sugars.

Reason #2) unlike cocoa, tea, and essentially coffee, FT sugar forces one to look at how US agricultural subsidies and trade barriers (ie un-free trade) can also make for un-FAIR trade. 85% of the US sugar supply is domestically produced, but in large part thanks to high trade barriers that block market access for small farmers in place like Paraguay, Costa Rica, Malawi and the Phillipines.

You can imagine how that debate/conversation could end up having a very different tone than that regarding FT coffee.