Nestle = Fair Trade?


I read about this yesterday on Cartoon blog and felt whilst leaving a comment would be good I would make sure I got my point across by writing about it hear. The background is this, Nestle are about to release a coffee with the fair trade mark, some people say this is great as it means that companies are finally waking up to the issue, others are not so pleased. I must admit my thoughts are possibly slightly marred after having visited a slum in Guatemala 5 years ago and gone into a family home, well a tin shack slightly under half the size of my office where a family of 6 lived, the youngest being about three months old and fed on Nestle powdered milk, mixed with the dirty water supply, approx 1/3 of the family home was taken up with a double mattress which was where the whole family slept, I have a problem with a company who can cause this kind of thing to happen. Anyway onto the Fair Trade mark, personally I’m not sure how a company the size of nestle can get away with producing a Fair Trade product, surely Fair Trade is to do with the way you do business and either you trade fairly or you don’t. What I mean is I personally don’t see how a product can be fair trade, I see that a company can chose to trade fairly and ethically or not. My argument would therefore be that the fair trade mark should surely be for a company rather that a product. I think it is great to see that Nestle are thinking about the way they do business but I think they should be looking at it as a whole rather than trying to say we are doing our bit when with the other hand they are doing a lot more damage than that one bit of good.

2 thoughts on “Nestle = Fair Trade?

  • October 29, 2005 at 6:08 pm
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    Hello Simo, thank you for sharing your opinion on the web. Actually I have one question…if you were a very big ship, would change your route without measuring really what are the perspectives that would be opened by taking this route. Don’t you think that so is Nestlé. I very much agree that it should tend to be general, but I really wonder how it could work on a general scale. Cheers.

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  • October 30, 2005 at 9:28 am
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    Dear anonymous, thank you for your comment sorry not to have replied sooner but I have been away, I do hop though you come back here to continue the conversation. Thinking about the ship analogy you use I think if I were the captain of the ship we need to get the ship in perspective, from what I have seen of Nestle this particular the passengers on this ship are heading for a titanic type of experience, from what I have seen of some of the things they do their actions are costing lives! I would hope that the captain of a ship in this situation would change course first, save think first of the people on board, then worry about getting back on course!

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