Ben & Jerry’s Expands Fair Trade Certified Products
I know that this site is becoming a regular Ben & Jerry’s lovefest, but this news was too delectable to keep to myself.
From CSRWire: “Ben & Jerry’s announcement celebrates October as Fair Trade Month.”
Ben & Jerry’s announced today that it is expanding its Fair Trade Certified ice cream flavors, making it the largest ice cream and frozen food manufacturer to offer Fair Trade Certified ingredients. Ben & Jerry’s Fair Trade Certified line-up now includes: Vanilla, Chocolate, Coffee, Coffee Heath Bar Crunch, and Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz Buzz. The announcement comes during Fair Trade month when TransFair USA and businesses across the country are highlighting the importance of Fair Trade Certified products to third world producers.
“Fair Trade creates stronger economic conditions, which help farmers feed and clothe their families, send their kids to school, get better health care, in general improve the quality of their lives,” said Paul Rice, founding President & CEO of TransFair USA, the only Fair Trade certification organization in the United States.
“With something as simple as choosing to purchase a Fair Trade product, people are making a powerful decision to dramatically improve the quality of life for farmers half way around the world,” Rice said.
Ben & Jerry’s is purchasing Fair Trade Certified coffee from a cooperative in Mexico; vanilla from Fair Trade Certified producers in India, with producers in Indonesia and Uganda under consideration; and Fair Trade Certified cocoa from producers in the Dominican Republic.
(Emphases are mine)
Now guys, what about fair trade and organic for the win? (Double the certification for double the fun.) Tell the company how you feel by leaving a note in its comment box.
azgoddess said,
October 12, 2006 at 5:07 pm
when i went shopping yesterday — i looked for the fair trade…HUGS!!!
Tash said,
October 13, 2006 at 12:53 pm
Unfortunately Ben & Jerrys is now property of Unilever (in the UK at least), so fairtrade or not, I won’t touch ‘em with a barge pole :( I did adore phishfood, too. My heart sinks.
My main reason for going anti-corporate on this occasion is because Unilever also make products known to be bad for man, beast and environment (Cif, Comfort, Dove, Domestos, Lux - to name but a few - the list is endless).