Two more UK supermarkets – Waitrose and Sainsbury’s – have decided to sell fair trade fresh produce.
Their decision follows a pioneering move earlier this year by the Co-operative Wholesale Society (CWS), which became the first UK supermarket chain to sell Fairtrade mark bananas (EP10, 2000).
Waitrose and Sainsbury’s have begun, as CWS did, by stocking bananas, but may move to stock other fair trade fresh produce if sales are satisfactory. Most UK supermarkets are likely to follow over the next few months.
Two other chains, Iceland and Safeway, are expected to announce fair trade deals on bananas in the near future – Safeway with suppliers from the Dominican Republic and Iceland with producers in either Costa Rica, Ghana or Ecuador.
Since their launch in the Netherlands in 1996, sales of fair trade bananas have risen steadily in Europe.
Meanwhile, the Fairtrade Foundation, an independent certification body responsible for the Fairtrade mark, has begun talks with cotton suppliers about producing fair trade cotton, which would be the first non-food product to bear a Fairtrade mark. The negotiations are expected to take at least two years.