Cadbury and the Fairtrade Foundation have announced plans for Cadbury Dairy Milk, Britain’s top selling chocolate bar, to be fairly traded by end of this summer.  It will result in the tripling of sales under Fairtrade terms for cocoa farmers in Ghana, as well as opening up new opportunities for many more to benefit from the Fairtrade system. Cadbury’s hot chocolate beverage is also included in the deal.

Pilots, the non-uniformed youth and children’s organisation of the United Reformed Church and the Congregational Federation has been encouraging Cadbury over a number of years to think in Fairtrade terms by writing, visiting and meeting with Cadbury management. Karen Bulley, Pilots Development Officer said: “At one point, young people – some as young as eleven – grilled a Cadbury director for more than an hour. Hopefully, Pilots encouraged them in their thinking. We will be writing to Cadbury to tell them that we see this as good news”.

Chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, Harriet Lamb, described it as a breakthrough, which sets a new standard for the mainstream chocolate industry.  She said “The Fairtrade Foundation set out an ambitious strategy last year to double its positive impact for producers by 2012. It is precisely this kind of big commitment by a major player that could make it possible to achieve these goals.”

In a message to supporters, Fairtrade said they recognised that many would have a strong allegiance to existing brands of fairly traded chocolate, such as Divine or Traidcraft. The Foundation wanted to pay tribute to the “trailblazing role” that they had played.

For more information:

See the Cadbury Dairy Milk blog, currently discussing the switch of Cadbury Dairy Milk to Fairtrade, and the Cadbury Dairy Milk commits to going Fairtrade story on the Fairtrade Foundation website.