Cavalier, a family business, has been manufacturing chocolate with no added sugars for exactly twenty years. First, it did so with the alternative sweetener maltitol, and more recently mainly with stevia. When the product range was renewed, Cavalier resolutely went fair trade.
When you ask how many honest products Carrefour offers, you get one back: What do you mean by honest products? The supermarket chain does not see fair trade as a separate product line. For both the products from the southern and northern hemisphere, they must be developed with respect for the producer, planet and customer.
With Colruyt, Bio-Planet and Okay, the Colruyt Group is one of the strongholds of Belgium’s retail sector. Does this holding which focuses on growth and profit have any attention for sustainable trade? Yes, indeed, so it seems. In addition to its supply of fair trade products, the Colruyt Group launched ‘value chain projects’ a few years ago in an attempt to ‘sustainabilify’ the producer-to-consumer value chain.
After petrol, coffee is the world’s biggest export product. It is almost exclusively cultivated in developing countries. The coffee trade therefore has a huge impact on the working and living conditions of local coffee producers, their families and on nature, according to Beyers’website. Beyers is a coffee roaster which offers a broad certified coffee assortment, representing 40% of its sales.
Every year, millions of kilos of Puro Fairtrade Coffee are sold around the world. For CEO Frans Van Tilborg, entrepreneurship does not only mean making a profit, but also caring about people and the planet. Part of Puro’s turnover is therefore spent on buying portions of endangered rainforest, with the aim of protecting it in the long term. Since its launch ten years ago, Puro has already acquired an area of equatorial forest equivalent to more than 10,000 football pitches.
Last year, more than 22 thousand tonnes of sugar products left the Candico factory in Merksem, near Antwerp. Some 50% of them were Fairtrade-labelled. The factory, which employs 78 people, packs cane sugar imported via the port of Antwerp; it also produces candy sugar.
The ACP textile printing workshop, which offers Fair Trade promotional and workwear, is clearly feeling an increase in both supply and interest in sustainable clothing. However, although “many customers are asking about the most sustainable choice, when it comes to making the final decision, even the most committed organisations opt for the cheapest product, which can be extremely frustrating for us,” says Director Dirk Piret.
For more than forty years the Oxfam-Wereldwinkels fair trade shops have brought together volunteers to advocate structural changes in North–South trade relations. “We are pioneers: first, we always try to put the mark as high as possible, and second, we try to convince the public of our story,” says Oxfam-Wereldswinkels director Joris Rossie.
From Oxfam-Magasins du monde we know the shops where you can buy a plethora of high quality fair trade products. Regular customers regularly visit these shops to buy their wine, fruit juices, cereals, coffee or fair trade handicrafts and body care products. The less regulars usually visit during the holiday season, because the shops are full of original gift ideas. But behind the stalls there is a great citizen movement, a pioneer of fair trade that manages to mobilise thousands of volunteers to change mentalities.
The name was chosen long before the arrival of the famous cartoon with the little bee. And for good reason: Maya honey, which refers to a great pre-Columbian civilisation, was one of the first fair trade products imported as such into Belgium.
Cavalier, a family business, has been manufacturing chocolate with no added sugars for exactly twenty years. First, it did so with the alternative sweetener maltitol, and more recently mainly with stevia. When the product range was renewed, Cavalier resolutely went fair trade.
When you ask how many honest products Carrefour offers, you get one back: What do you mean by honest products? The supermarket chain does not see fair trade as a separate product line. For both the products from the southern and northern hemisphere, they must be developed with respect for the producer, planet and customer.
With Colruyt, Bio-Planet and Okay, the Colruyt Group is one of the strongholds of Belgium’s retail sector. Does this holding which focuses on growth and profit have any attention for sustainable trade? Yes, indeed, so it seems. In addition to its supply of fair trade products, the Colruyt Group launched ‘value chain projects’ a few years ago in an attempt to ‘sustainabilify’ the producer-to-consumer value chain.
After petrol, coffee is the world’s biggest export product. It is almost exclusively cultivated in developing countries. The coffee trade therefore has a huge impact on the working and living conditions of local coffee producers, their families and on nature, according to Beyers’website. Beyers is a coffee roaster which offers a broad certified coffee assortment, representing 40% of its sales.
Every year, millions of kilos of Puro Fairtrade Coffee are sold around the world. For CEO Frans Van Tilborg, entrepreneurship does not only mean making a profit, but also caring about people and the planet. Part of Puro’s turnover is therefore spent on buying portions of endangered rainforest, with the aim of protecting it in the long term. Since its launch ten years ago, Puro has already acquired an area of equatorial forest equivalent to more than 10,000 football pitches.
Last year, more than 22 thousand tonnes of sugar products left the Candico factory in Merksem, near Antwerp. Some 50% of them were Fairtrade-labelled. The factory, which employs 78 people, packs cane sugar imported via the port of Antwerp; it also produces candy sugar.
The ACP textile printing workshop, which offers Fair Trade promotional and workwear, is clearly feeling an increase in both supply and interest in sustainable clothing. However, although “many customers are asking about the most sustainable choice, when it comes to making the final decision, even the most committed organisations opt for the cheapest product, which can be extremely frustrating for us,” says Director Dirk Piret.
For more than forty years the Oxfam-Wereldwinkels fair trade shops have brought together volunteers to advocate structural changes in North–South trade relations. “We are pioneers: first, we always try to put the mark as high as possible, and second, we try to convince the public of our story,” says Oxfam-Wereldswinkels director Joris Rossie.
From Oxfam-Magasins du monde we know the shops where you can buy a plethora of high quality fair trade products. Regular customers regularly visit these shops to buy their wine, fruit juices, cereals, coffee or fair trade handicrafts and body care products. The less regulars usually visit during the holiday season, because the shops are full of original gift ideas. But behind the stalls there is a great citizen movement, a pioneer of fair trade that manages to mobilise thousands of volunteers to change mentalities.
The name was chosen long before the arrival of the famous cartoon with the little bee. And for good reason: Maya honey, which refers to a great pre-Columbian civilisation, was one of the first fair trade products imported as such into Belgium.
