IN ASSOCIATION WITH FAIR TRADE FORT-NIGHT 2010 THE BIG SWAP

As my bead to take part and get involved in the fair trade fort night, I thought it would be a good idea to carry out my on research on the subject and share my finding with others in the hope to get more people involved and more aware on the subject. As you may or may not know England in one of the largest consumers of tea in world, with tea part of the British culture.

Using tea as the basics for my own investigation, I paid a visit to the three BIG super markets in my local area, which included Tesoc, ASAD & Sainsbury’s. In this current economic climate where everyone is tightening their bleats I did not think it would have been that relevant to focus on the high-end brands of tea. So I focused on value packs of tea and compared them to price of the supermarket own brand of fair trade tea.

The results:

Tesco’s Finest box of Fair trade tea would cost £1.58 where as the Tesco’s value box of tea would cost £0.28 (£1.30 price difference)
ASDA’s Fair trade box of tea would cost £1.83 where as the ASDA’s Smart Price cost £0.28 (1.55 price difference)
Sainsbury’s Red label Fair trade tea would cost £1.34 where as the Sainsbury’s Basics Tea cost £0.28p (£1.06 price difference important to note that Sainsbury’s Basics Tea was Fair trade endorsed)

My finding showed that the super market value tea’s where cheaper which was to be expected by £1.30. But what was unexpected was that Sainsbury’s was the only supermarket to have their value tea endorsed by Fair trade. This begs the question why the other supermarkets are not following suit whilst Sainsbury can stock value Fare trade tea and still remain completive. Results of this investigation go show the misconceptions that is associated with Fair trade products are not true. For instance, that Fair trade does not automatically mean more expensive, it also dismisses another misconception that Fair trade it not completive but the evidence clearly show that Sainsbury can sell Fair trade tea bags at a completive price.

I can conclude that Sainsbury’s came out on top I would recommend as part the Fair trade fort-night 2010 (the Big Swap) we should swap from your every day tea and try something new that is cheaper would benefit others in the third world. By take part it means you get to show your support for developing world producers through what you buy. ‘Two billion people - a third of humanity - survive on less than $2 a day. Unfair trade rules keep them in poverty, but they face the global challenges of food shortages and climate change too.’ Just by swapping one item in our shopping bags we can help change this statistic.

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