Mars and Seeds of Change
Seeds of Change is quite a mouth full when you realize that they have in fact CHANGED! (company was bought out by Mars)
If you read the about us on their website, It’ll tell you about their long history of being organic sustainable…what it won’t tell you is that Mars bought Seeds of Change in 19xx. Since then, It’s been lanched in the UK and
in this article on The Ecologist it details the money made and this little tidbit:
” In 2004 Mars failed to respond to an international petition urging it to include Fairtrade chocolate in its product range. “
I’ve written about chocolate before in regard to organic companies…interesting how Mars and Seeds of Change were linked on this chart too. They don’t seem not mind cashing in on an “organic” claim but fairtrade cocoa is out of the question. I think I might have to sort through my kid’s Valentine candy and toss hershey’s and mars in the trash. (a crying shame!)
Happy Washing
~Regina
4 Comments
Michael Allured
Many people feel that there are much more effective and ethical ways of purchasing cacao than fair trade. In fact, Hershey and Mars have spent a lot of money working directly with the farmers and the farmer communities to improve the education, farming practices, working conditions, etc. It is too bad that such a broad brush is used. Fair Trade, in fact, doesn’t promise any improvement for the farmers from what I understand.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Regina
Just so our readers know, Michael Allured is an editor at Manufacturing Confectioner. I’d be curious to know the “many people” he refers to.
There would be no need for a program of fair trade to form if farmers were given fair wage from their products. I can understand that more paperwork and expense are a bit irritating with a certification but somehow it just doesn’t seem like the “big companies” like Hershey and Mars would have much trouble making it happen. And those are my 20 cents.
Happy Washing
~Regina
Michael Allured
Hi Regina,
I wouldn’t have given you my web site if I was trying to hide anything. I just get a bit frustrated when people think that Fair Trade is the answer. It works very well for some products like coffee, but it doesn’t work well for others. There are much better ways of doing what Fair Trade says it tries to do without the huge overhead (read: money that could go to farmers that instead go to the Fair Trade organization). If you would like to really know what the industry (large companies and small) are doing instead of just believing in Fair Trade, all or nothing, I would be happy to help. If this is just a whim and you really don’t want to get involved in the detail, then I will just leave it alone.
Mike
admin
Thanks for commenting back, Michael Allured.
If someone else’s life where a passing fancy, I’d think before I blogged about it. I by no means have all the answers but I’m not afraid to say what is. I really don’t understand a half foot into the organic market that big companies are doing. I’ve not studied the ins and outs of Fair trade certification. I know that the basic idea is fair pay for the products. If coffee is different in cocoa on that front, by all means enlighten us as to how. If you are going to tell me that companies like Hershey and Mars’s have the farmer’s best interests at hand, well let’s say we aren’t that naive. Understandably cultures and politics enter into the differences. These big companies could do FAR great, wonderful things but choose not to. Fair trade is not even a good clean bandaid but it’s a step in the right direction. If you want to tell me that Hersheys and Mars are so conciencous that they are fixing the problems without an organization like this…they are doing a remarkably poor job of telling their story. So by all means, you are invited to guest post on my blog if you have details that would change the perception of the facts presented. You can e-mail me off blog at sales at dr-flower dot com.