By Jerram Watts
Fairtrade Certified Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate is now available in New Zealand.
Cadbury expects the move will increase Fairtrade chocolate sales by 20 fold and double last year’s total sales of Fairtrade chocolate in New Zealand and Australia.
The more than 45,000 Ghanaian cocoa farmers who harvest the base ingredient will be the beneficiaries of the Fairtrade venture.
It offers a better deal for producers in developing countries by setting a fair and stable price for their produce and providing an additional Fairtrade premium for investment in local community development.
The move is the result of nearly two years of work with Cadbury’s Fairtrade partners globally and will provide around $120 million over 10 years to the cocoa farming community.
The confectionary giant has also returned to cocoa-butter only chocolate after it received criticism and much attention when it was discovered mid-2009 that they had been using palm oil in their recipe.
Globally there has been an increasing boycott of products which contain palm oil or have any association, because many rainforests are being illegally cut down to make room for more palm oil groves.
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