Fair Trade: A Lever for Change in Business Practices Brad Hill Fairtrade Strategic Development Manag

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Fair Trade A Lever for Change in Business
Practices?Brad HillFairtrade Strategic
Development Manager
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Agenda

• A profile of the Co-operative Group
• Fairtrade and the Co-op
• Engaging with Fairtrade
• A lever for change?
• Building a commercially viable marketplace

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A profile of the Co-operative Group

• The largest consumer co-operative in the world
• 87,000 employees
• 4.5 million members
• Diverse business. Banking, travel, insurance,
  farming, funerals, pharmacy, motor dealerships
• Main business is food retail.

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A profile of the Co-operative Food

• Over 2200 shops across the UK
• More outlets than any competitor
• Generally convenience and small supermarkets

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A profile of the Co-operative Food

• Grocery market share of 5. Compares to
  Tesco 31
  Asda 17
  Sainsbury 16
  Morrisons 11
• all have fewer
  but larger stores

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Fairtrade and the Co-op

• Co-operation was born in 1844
• Fairtrade products launched 150 years later
• Provided an opportunity to market a powerful
  co-operative message
• Fairtrade reflects founding co-op values and
  principles democracy, equality, equity, self
  help and self responsibility

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Engaging with Fairtrade

• Co-op adopted Fairtrade on its launch in 1994
• Introduced a support strategy in 1998 aimed at
  mainstreaming
• Have maintained an innovative and leading
  approach ever since.

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Engaging with Fairtrade

• 1999. Listed products in ALL stores
• 2000. Launched bananas in to UK
  First Fairtrade own brand product
• 2002. Switched all own brand chocolate bars
• 2003. Switched all own brand coffee
• 2004/5. Launch of Towns and Schools guides
• 2006. Range size larger than all competitors
• 2007. Bananas into all stores.
  Launch of cotton bags.

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A lever for change?
The path has been far from easy!!!

• Cultural change within the business
• The challenges of the Fairtrade system
• Impact we have made on other businesses

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A lever for change? Business Culture

• Corporate Social Responsibilty
• V
• Commercial Objectives

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business culture

• 1999 Listing of all products into every
  store
• 2000 Can we launch own brand?
• 2002 How much will our chocolate initiative
  cost?
• 2003 Converting coffee to Fairtrade A
  major risk!
• 2004/5 Widening support and canvassing
• 2006 Fairtrade is integrated but is not
  charity!
• 2007 Fairtrade is now a requisite

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Impact and examples - Fairtrade system

• Pricing
• Product Range limitations
• Sourcing ingredients
• Limited supplier base

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Impact and examples external advocacy

• Championing
• Challenging
• Coercing
• Campaigning
• Convincing
• Commercialising

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Building a commercially viable marketplace

• The UK is the 2nd largest Fairtrade marketplace
  in the World
• The Co-op a food retailer with just 5 share
  has dominated the sector for a decade
• We still have a 20 Fairtrade grocery share
• We have created a commercially viable marketplace
  into which an increasing number of businesses are
  engaging

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Thank YouBrad HillFairtrade Strategic
Development Manager