Kit Kat's Fairtrade credentials
Nestlé, owners of the best selling Kit Kat chocolate bar, has announced that the UK product will soon carry the Fairtrade Mark, making cocoa suppliers in the Ivory Coast richer by several hundreds of thousands of pounds. The new packaging for the complete range of Kit Kat products will be seen in shops from mid-January. The launch will provide cocoa farmers with a minimum price per tonne of US$1,750 which includes an extra US$150 for investment in the local communities.
Currently more than 1 billion bars of the chocolate covered wafers are sold each year in the UK and include exotic flavours such as peanut butter. The product, which was launched by Rowntree of York in 1935, (it was acquired by Nestlé in 1988), is now available in more than 70 countries.
The company plans to invest £65 million over the next decade in farming communities and has already given the Ivory Coast farmers new cocoa trees to replace those reaching the end of their 30 year productive lifespan.
Ivory Coast provides over 40 per cent of the world's cocoa. The price reached a 30-year high in late 2009 but disease, dry weather and civil war has affected investment and production in recent years. So the move by Nestlé will be a welcome development to stabilise future supplies and increase yields.
UK sales of Fairtrade products could reach £1 billion in 2010 after a dramatic rise of more than 40 per cent, to £700 million in 2008.
