The Challenges of Marketing Fair Trade - Wynne, Sandy

increase capacity for launching more than one or two new products a year. In addition,
FTUSA should work more actively with Fair Trade companies, especially 100% FT
companies, to develop composite products. Composite products contain Fair Trade
Certified ingredients and reflect a growing demand for convenience snacks and meals
and offers. These composite products are an opportunity to increase sales of products like
sugar, cocoa or fruit. Europe’s snack bar Geobar offers an example of a successful
composite product developed through a collaborative effort.
Private labels have become another source of new products. Large retailers have
developed their own private Fair Trade Certified coffee label, like Costco’s Kirkland
and Sam’s Club’s Members’ Mark. National and regional supermarket chains such as
Price Chopper and Hannaford’s, who already have their own private labels on milk,
cereals and other agricultural food related products, should be encouraged to create
private Fair Trade labeled products.
Along with product development, the certification process determines the
availability of certified products. This process has been accused of being slow,
inefficient, and unfairly restricting new participants in the Fair Trade market. Groups like
the Community Agroecology Network (CAN) (Appendix A) have reached out to coffee
producing communities to assist them with obtaining funds for the cost of certification, as
well as assisting farmers in working through the complexities of the process. FLO offers
some financial funding, but this, in turn, creates another layer of complexity to work
through. CAN offers its farmers direct access to U.S. consumers through its website.
CAN is a model that could be considered by groups looking to develop a long term
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