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Fair Trade Gets More Mainstream Support

Fair-trade groceries are crossing over from natural food stores to traditional supermarkets, club stores and even online retailers. Amazon.com featured fair-trade-certified (FTC) Pura Vida coffee on sale on its website during Fair Trade Month, a major promotional event held annually in October. The retailer has been offering the coffee since last year, but this was the first time it promoted it heavily,

Fair-trade groceries are crossing over from natural food stores to traditional supermarkets, club stores and even online retailers.

Amazon.com featured fair-trade-certified (FTC) Pura Vida coffee on sale on its website during Fair Trade Month, a major promotional event held annually in October. The retailer has been offering the coffee since last year, but this was the first time it promoted it heavily, according to TransFair USA, Oakland, Calif., an independent, third-party certifier of fair-trade products for the United States.

The online retailer also features FTC coffee on an everyday basis from Pura Vida and other brands, including Timothy's World, Java Trading, Green Mountain and Reggie's Roast.

Wegmans Food Markets also participated in Fair Trade Month for the first time by setting up endcap displays of various fair-trade products, according to TransFair.

Wegmans and Amazon are not alone. Sam's Club held a major sampling event for FTC coffee at 177 stores during Fair Trade Month. For every bag of Café Bom Dia's FTC Marques de Paiva coffee sold during October, the retailer donated $1 toward a project to build a school at a Brazilian coffee co-op.

Representatives from both Sam's and Wegmans were unavailable for comment.

Nugget Markets, Woodland, Calif., a combination conventional/specialty retailer, started selling FTC coffee about five years ago. It has since branched out to nearly all FTC categories available, including chocolate, quinoa and rice, according to Lorna Parton, Nugget's director of healthy living. It created its largest fair-trade display for Fair Trade Month this past October. The display featured educational information and about 150 stockkeeping units.

“We created brochures that explain what fair trade is all about and the products we offer,” Parton said.

Such efforts demonstrate growing retail support of fair trade, a practice designed to help family farmers in developing countries gain direct access to international markets. Products that bear the FTC seal mean they were purchased at a fair price, and produced under fair labor conditions and under environmentally sustainable farming methods, such as without agrochemicals or genetically modified organisms, according to TransFair. While coffee is the most common fair-trade product, plenty of other items are available, including chocolate, rice, tea, sugar, soy milk, cocoa, cornstarch and quinoa.

Nationwide, about 500 companies are licensed to sell FTC products at more than 35,000 retailers, including Wild Oats Markets, Giant Eagle and Andronico's.

“What used to be a niche market has now entered the mainstream,” said Nicole Chettero, TransFair's public relations manager.

A big reason for this is that Americans are becoming more concerned about unfair labor practices, as well as farming practices that could damage the environment, she said. “People are no longer asking is this product good for me, but also is it good for others.”

As reported, Wild Oats carries about 200 FTC items in 18 different categories, including coffee, tea, rice, chocolate, cocoa and sugar. It recently introduced several new items, including quinoa and rice. Several years ago, Wild Oats converted its bulk coffee program to 100% FTC.

Wild Oats is active in Fair Trade Month — so much so that Cathy Eubanks, a demo coordinator for a Wild Oats store in Cincinnati, won TransFair's 2006 Fair Trade Month retail display contest. Displays were judged on creativity, visibility, consumer education and the number of fair-trade-certified products. Eubanks received an eight-day trip for two to Costa Rica, where she will visit coffee and cocoa co-ops to see how fair trade has transformed various communities.

Eubanks designed a display to educate customers about fair trade, as well as the FTC product selection at Wild Oats. The display was strategically positioned near the store's cafe, a high-traffic area.

“When I was building the display, I was amazed at how fair trade has grown and how many fair trade products Wild Oats carries,” Eubanks said in a statement. “A lot of people who did not know about fair trade asked what it was all about, just from seeing the display.”

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