Trade Aid Coffee Hits Ten Million

12 September 2006

Trade Aid Coffee Hits Ten Million

Trade Aid, New Zealand’s leading fair trade importer, can provide more than ten million reasons why it has just completed a highly successful year of trading.

In annual results just released, Trade Aid highlighted its success in broadening the appeal of fair trade beyond its own network of 30 retail stores by importing 220 tonnes of fair trade coffee in the past year destined for lattes and flat whites in cafes all over the country. That’s enough coffee to make ten million standard double-shot espressos.

“Fair trade is an idea that is striking a chord with more and more New Zealanders every year”, states Geoff White, Trade Aid’s General Manager. “Many of us are concerned about the direction in which a lot of global trade is taking us, trade that doesn’t account for the needs of millions of small-scale producers and which doesn’t allow them to receive a fair enough share of the pie. We know that unless we don’t, as fair traders, focus heavily on meeting our producers’ basic needs through fairer trading terms then they’re going to continue missing out on the chance to earn a living wage. We see buying on behalf of other concerned companies who also want to ensure that third world producers are getting a better deal as becoming a natural extension of our role”.

In addition to its core handcraft retail business, Trade Aid has in recent years rapidly increased the value of fair trade goods coming into the country by partnering with a number of commercially-based businesses – primarily, coffee roasters – in order to facilitate wider access to fair trade product purchased from throughout the developing world. By the end of the June 2006 financial year, 50% of all the coffee Trade Aid imported was being bought on behalf of other New Zealand coffee roasters, purchased using finance the roasters have provided themselves.

Retail sales of Trade Aid products have also seen high sales growth. In the year to June 2006, Trade Aid reported retail sales of $8.53 million, a 36% increase on the previous year. Again, this is good news for third world producers – Trade Aid’s annual report shows that orders placed with 92% of their trading partners have increased in value in the past year, providing them with reliable and regular income.

“We put this huge growth in sales down to two key factors”, says White. “Firstly, we know from feedback that our product range is improving all the time. But most significantly, we know that New Zealand consumers are increasingly concerned about the conditions under which the people who made the goods are working – and they know they can trust Trade Aid to treat producers with dignity and respect”.

ENDS

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