An Ethical Dilemma

Fairtrade products are good right? I'd say that's fairly universally acknowledged. After all it's about better prices, decent working conditions, land fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world.

And organic is pretty good too i'd say: sustainable farming practices, greater biodiversity and are being all round environmentally sound. That's good too.

So we should be supporting producers of Fairtrade and/ or organic products.

But what about when the producer of an organic and fairtrade products, in this case Green & Blacks, is owned by Cadbury's - they have just made their leading product line, Dairy Milk, Fairtrade in Australia and New Zealand, that's good too.

Looking at the Ethical Consumer Guide, Cadbury's don't appear too bad - either from the perspective of their Australian holding company, nor their parent company in the UK.

However, reading on, Cadbury is now owned by US giant Kraft, as a result of a recent high profile takeover. Those bad boys are a different proposition altogether: cited as payers of poor wages to coffee farmers, use of GM ingredients etc

So where do you draw the line? As I opened this post with, fairtrade and organic are good right? So how do you reconcile the support being provided to those farmers being paid under a fair trade scheme with the knowledge that the bottom line profits are going back to a behemoth multinational? Just think about the next time to tuck into your Vegemite on toast, or Mac n Cheese, or dunk an Oreo into your coffee.