Fairtrade cocoa simply wasn’t widely available before 2000 and it’s been a story of continual progress, supporting smallholder farmers in Peru, The Dominican Republic, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.
In May 2017, we became the first UK retailer to source all of our cocoa on Fairtrade terms. Every spoonful of cocoa we use, from the chocolate sprinkles on our doughnuts through to the chocolate chips in our Irresistible cookies, is benefitting Fairtrade cocoa farmers. Our commitment contributes around £450,000 per year in Fairtrade Premium to farmers across West Africa and Central America.
Watch Awa Traore's story and find out how buying Fairtrade products is supporting women to become leaders in Côte d’Ivoire.
In West Africa, as part of our commitment to Fairtrade cocoa, we have been funding Fairtrade Africa’s Women’s School of Leadership since 2017. The Leadership School is a training, mentoring and coaching programme that supports women and men to maximise their own potential and voluntarily take on leadership roles in their producer organisations and communities. The students are trained to become ambassadors for women’s leadership and gender equality and the programme has led to students carrying out community awareness sessions, establishing gender committees within their producer organisations and setting up additional income-generating activities. Since 2017, the project has positively impacted thousands of members of the communities in Côte d’Ivoire.
“I was not aware of my value as a woman, I was not aware of my potential.” KOUAME AYA BEATRICE, ECAKOOG, Graduate of the Women’s School of Leadership
We helped support Peruvian farmers after the pandemic caused a deflationary spiral in cocoa bean prices. Our support has included the supply of emergency relief food parcels, essential PPE equipment and medicines for health personnel to treat COVID-19.
