I’d heard rumours, but it wasn’t until I came across a bar of it myself that I really believed it: A fair trade brand-name chocolate bar from ‘big chocolate.’ It was a Cadbury Dairy Milk. We found it in a gas station on the Trans-Canada Highway somewhere near Medicine Hat, Alberta. To boot, it was on special at the same price of all the other Cadbury products, 2 for $1.12. (Which is ridiculous, really.) I did a double take and a triple take. Then I did what any self-respecting food blogger would do: I started snapping photos and sending the news out on Twitter. Oh, and I happily bought a couple of them too.
So what’s the deal here? The news is hardly new, but it is exciting. Cadbury officially announced that it would start manufacturing Dairy Milk with ingredients purchased from from fair trade sources in 2008. About a year later, the first chocolate bars became available in the UK and Ireland, and Cadbury announced that they would extend the program to Canada, Australia and New Zealand. (Sorry America, you seem to be out of luck… for now.) According to Cadbury, their goal is to make at least one-quarter of their global dairy milk bars fair trade certified by the end of 2010. They have also pledged a commitment to keeping the the fair trade-certified Dairy Milk bars at the same price as their regular chocolate bars, despite higher ingredient costs.
The chocolate comes from a cooperative in Ghana and the move to fair trade Dairy Milk in Canada is considered the largest fair trade chocolate initiative in the country. Canadians consume over 22 million Dairy Milk chocolate bars each year. According to Cadbury, under their global commitment, over 40,000 small chocolate producers and 60,000 sugar growers will receive a fair price for the product as well as reinvestment of fair-trade premiums back into community-led projects determined by the farmers themselves. Some of these include wells, mobile community health clinics and investment into more sustainable farming techniques.
Since my discovery last week in Alberta, I’ve seen the fair trade Dairy Milk readily available in no less than four provinces during my vacation travels. I’ve also seen billboards advertising the chocolate bar and explaining a bit about fair trade. I hope that this is just the beginning (Apparently Cadbury is considering switching other brands over the Fair Trade.), and that other ‘big chocolate’ companies like Nestle and Hershey will also make similar commitments.
What do you think about fair trade Dairy Milk, or ‘big chocolate’ and fair trade? Have you seen it in stores near you? Will it change your buying habits? Is the ‘mainstreaming’ of fair trade a good thing or do you see potential pitfalls?
Fantastic news! Thanks for spreading the word – I’ve often bought Cadbury over other “big chocolate” names when I couldn’t go for fair trade/organic stuffs, as their chocolate tastes better than Hershey or Nestle in my opinion. Nice to know I can do so with a clearer conscience now, too.
I’m glad big companies are stepping up and doing things that are more ethical and better for all involved. I still don’t think their chocolate is safe for our family (nut allergy), but I will happily enjoy a fair trade bar while out and about on my own.
Still haven’t come across the right argument to help me process whether we need to support initiatives like this and Cadbury realize Green & Black’s had it right or whether we’re helping a bad company hedge their bets.
Thank you for blogging about Dairy Milk!
We think the news is very exciting.
In addition to Cadbury Dairy Milk being Fair Trade Certified in Canada, you now have the chance to win a trip to Ghana to see firsthand what life is like in a fair trade cocoa farm and community. Follow our Fair Trade activity on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/CadburyDairyMilkCanada and Twitter @dairymilkcanada.
Or check out the site – http://dairymilk.ca/fairtrade/en/
Enjoy your chocolate, and let’s all continue make choices that support sustainability,
Michelle
We just got Cadbury bars for Christmas 2010 that are the Fair Trade line. It’s great news. But, has anyone else noticed that the ingredients are now different in other aspects. Whereas milk used to be the first ingredient listed, it’s now sugar, and second is “milk ingredients.” I’m sad they caved here in Canada and are using the milk ingreditents or modified milk ingredients. It’s just not the same tasting as actual milk, and given that the point is it’s a “dairy milk” bar, it’s a shame. I knew it’d already happened with the Flake bars. I had one from London Drugs here in BC, and one from a British store, and could tell immediately that the Canadian made one had a more sour taste. Still leaps and bounds above Hersehy though!
That’s really interesting and very sad. I hadn’t noticed that the ingredients had changed.
Oddly I don’t have a Canadian fair trade dairy milk on hand, but I do have a UK one. At least they still list milk as the main ingredient, followed by fair trade sugar, fair trade cocoa butter and fair trade coca mass.
Is this just a PR ploy to push the rest of their slave trafficked products?
I was just in a local Safeway grocery store, and I walked by this massive Cadbury chocolate bar. The thing that caught my eye, apart from its size was the Fair Trade stamp! Super excited, I just had to buy one! I just came online to try to contact Cadbury to applaud them for taking huge steps, and being a leading example for other major chocolate brands! I hope many other follow suit! I wasn’t aware that Cadbury Dairy Milk chocolate bars in England and Ireland have been participating in fair trade of cocoa beans for a few years now! Bravo!! I am very pleased about all of this!