Compass Fairtrade Fortnight 2022

As Fairtrade Fortnight begins today, it’s an opportunity to raise awareness of the initiative and take stock of how we’ve supported Fairtrade over the last year.

There are still many farmers and workers growing food across the world, that do not earn enough to feed their families, invest in their community, or build resilience against health and climate shocks.

Fairtrade exists to combat this through a system of minimum prices for some crops, and a Fairtrade premium paid in addition to the price. The Fairtrade Premium is an extra sum of money that farmers or workers invest in projects of their choice. Fairtrade farmers in our supply chain decide together how to spend the Fairtrade Premium to reach their goals, such as improving their farming and income, investing in health and education for their community, or protecting the environment around them.

In 2021, Compass Group UK & I contributed an estimated £57k in Fairtrade Premium to Fairtrade producers and workers thanks to our partnership with a number of suppliers including:

• Clipper – Compass UK & I sales of Clipper Tea products in 2021 saw almost £3,000 raised for projects seeking to improve the quality of life for workers and families, encourage biodiversity on the tea estates, as well as investments in pensions, healthcare and schooling
• Lemonaid - During 2021, 20 projects were supported and the funds raised for the Lemonaid & ChariTea Foundation meant that 525 people could successfully increase their income and almost 2000 people received some sort of vocational training (with at least 1300 of them women)
• Karma – Sales of Karma drinks in 2021, helped towards the construction of 4 new schools, 8 qualifications and salaries for teachers, 135 bursaries for girls to go to school as well as 200 farmers provided with seedling support
• Tate & Lyle – Compass UK & I sales of Tate & Lyle sugar generated over £15,000 in Fairtrade Premium in 2021 benefitting sugar cane farmers of the The Progressive Sugar Cane Producers Association (PSCPA) in Belize. PSCPA’s 2021 projects included setting up almost 60 farming households with their own smallholder poultry hatcherys and rolling out training on forced labour and gender based violence across the farming community.

We are really proud of these achievements and will continue to drive forward our relationship with the Fairtrade Foundation to make a difference to the lives of farmers across the world.   

Read more about the history of our partnership with Fairtrade here