Fair Trade Marketing

Fair Trade Marketing: Case of Starbucks

Fair Trade Marketing: Case of Starbucks

Introduction

The popularity of Fair Trade marketing products has seen some big brand names vying to be stamped with the instantly recognisable yin yang style blue and green symbol. However the increasing demand for Fair Trade marketing goods has created polarisations equalled only by the climate change debate. So does the consumer's choice benefit the developing countries that source our favourite food and beverages? One of the country's top political magazines New Statesman decided to team up with Starbucks and host a Question Time style debate. Free tickets were offered to New Statesman readers via its website. Attendees were offered a complimentary cup, or four, of fair-trade coffee and a slice of decadent Fair Trade marketing chocolate brownie, before posing tough questions to the handpicked panel. With hot coffee and dessert in the hands of attendees, BBC reporter Justin Rowlatt introduced the panel and began by asking the first question to the panel member with perhaps the most unpopular view of ethical consumerism. Many Fair Trade marketing products exist, such as handicrafts, flowers and paper, but the main products are coffee, bananas, tea and chocolate. In 2003, global sales of Fair Trade marketing products surpassed $700 million. In 2005, there were 433 producer groups globally working with 5 million farmers and their families, up from 360 in 2002. Since 2001, export prices for coffee have dropped from $1.00 to $0.49c/lb, but Fair Trade marketing coffee prices have remained at $1.26/lb, preventing many small scale farmers from bankruptcy. Nonetheless, Fair Trade marketing has remained a niche market. Consumers have the power to affect the growth of Fair Trade marketing products. However, this is contingent on their awareness of the inequalities of mainstream trade and the practices of supermarkets, so that they choose, or not, whether to promote Fair Trade marketing by paying a sort of ethical premium for Fair Trade marketing products. To better understand the current levels of knowledge and awareness among consumers, an original consumer survey was designed and carried out at one 'up market' supermarket (Waitrose) and one 'down market' supermarket (ASDA) in Kingston, south west London. The survey focuses on food as an important sector of the Fair Trade market

Fair Trade: Thesis

Fair Trade marketing is the most important and fastest growing market-based mechanism to improve the lives of producers in developing countries.

It does so by offering small-scale producers in the global south fairer trade relations, including a guaranteed minimum price above world price and developmental support. Global Fair Trade marketing sales have reached € 1.1 billion (US$1.4 billion), increasing at rates of around 50 percent per year and are projected to continue to grow. Fair Trade marketing bananas have a market share of 56 percent in Switzerland and the U.S. Fair Trade marketing coffee market has been growing nearly 90 percent per year since Fair Trade marketing coffee was launched in 1998. The success of Fair Trade marketing is reiterated time over time ...