Fairtrade logo
 Stoke-on-Trent Fairtrade
Home
Fairtrade Stoke
What is Fairtrade?
Where to buy Fairtrade goods
Cafés serving Fairtrade produce
Fairtrade workplaces/canteens
Community Fairtrade Users
Local happenings
What can I do?
  Arms of the City of Stoke-on-Trent
The problems:
  • The rules of international trade favour rich countries and large multi-national companies over poor countries and small-scale producers.
  • Low wages, excessive hours, child labour and disregard for the most basic health and safety precautions, can all contribute to low prices in our shops.
  • Making the positive choice of buying fairly traded and locally produced food, clothes and craft items is a simple way of improving people's prospects - and you get the quality you want!
  • Fairtrade ensures basic rights for producers by offering fair and guaranteed prices, and by encouraging long-term trading commitments.
  • Fairtrade means that a growing number of farmers, workers, craftspeople and small-scale producers are now getting a better deal in return for their hard labour.
As an example of international trade see: 
Black Gold Movie

Fairtrade is a system designed to ensure that growers in developing countries are paid a fair and stable price for the goods that we buy from them. Fairtrade is a growing phenomenon worldwide and already has a rapidly developing network of friends and supporters - from individuals who buy FAIRTRADE Mark products when out shopping, right through to businesses such as Traidcraft and The Day Chocolate Company whose core mission is to build sales of products that give hope for a better future to people living in less developed countries.

Make a positive choice: switch to Fairtrade.
Why Fairtrade?
Farmers all over the world, who grow bananas, coffee, cocoa and more, are often very poor indeed. They struggle to survive within a system of world trade that is not fair. Whilst big companies continue to make profits, the lives of millions of small-scale producers and workers the world over are getting worse. As market prices fall, many are forced into crippling debt and lose their land, homes and even their lives.
"… countries desperately need more aid… but they also need to be free of the unfair burden of policies imposed by rich countries." Christian Aid

"... Fairtrade is simply shopping with respect."
                                                                                                                                                                Ghanaian cocoa farmer
" I appeal to the UK community and all those that purchase Fairtrade tea that, as you take tea in that cup, you are addressing the injustices and assisting many smallholder farmers and communities in developing countries to improve their own livlihood."
                                                                                                                                                       Silver Kasaro Atwaki, Mabale Growers Tea Factory, Uganda

More and more shoppers wish to buy products that exploit neither the environment nor the people who produce them. Fairtrade makes it possible to shop with a difference and make a direct impact on the lives and wellbeing of producers.
Fairtrade goods
Picture source: The Fairtrade Foundation



The Fairtrade mark
The Fairtrade mark guarantees goods have been fairly traded.

The mark is awarded only to products that meet strict criteria, including:
  • decent wages, adequate housing and health and safety standards for workers in plantations and factories;
  • the right to join trade unions or to participate in democratic organisations (for example workers' co-operatives);
  • a fair minimum price;
  • a social "premium" on top of the fair price, to improve schools and to provide clean water, healthcare and roads, so that people can plan their future;
  • a long-term trading commitment;
  • good environmental standards and sustainable production practices;
  • no child or forced labour.

The Fairtrade Foundation, with its partners, checks that products continue to meet these criteria after they are approved.