As every year during the first 15 days of May, Fairtrade Luxembourg organises an awareness-raising campaign and explains the impact the customers' purchasing power has on producers.
It's a label that everyone has probably seen. You can find it on chocolate, juice, coffee and also on bananas. But what exactly is Fairtrade? Which labels can be trusted? And which ones are just a marketing strategy?
The green-blue-black label has been around since 2004 and helps consumers throughout Europe when shopping. It means that the whole product is Fairtrade. As a rule, it is therefore also found on foods such as orange juice or coffee, which only consist of one ingredient anyway. However, there are also two variants of the seal.
The black logo with the file indicates that only a part, but at least 20 per cent of the product, is Fairtrade. Exactly how much and which ingredients are Fairtrade is stated on the back.
The white seal then means that only a single ingredient is Fairtrade. This usually applies to cocoa in chocolate.
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'Fairtrade' doesn't automatically amount to 'fair trade'
For a producer to receive a Fairtrade seal, specific conditions must be met. These include good working conditions, transparency, environmental protection and a ban on child labour and pesticides.
Note that 'Fair trade' is not a legally protected term and the product is therefore not checked for the above mentioned Fairtrade conditions.
Fairtrade in Luxembourg
On a global scale, Luxembourg consumers rank in sixth place, spending 60 euros per year on Fairtrade products. At the top comes the Swiss consumer, who on average spends 120 euros per year.
In general however, Fairtrade Luxembourg has noticed that more and more local producers taking the path of fairer production. There are now 25 Luxembourg brands that process Fairtrade products such as cocoa with local products such as flour and butter into a finished foodstuff, such as a croissant.
There are also 26 Fairtrade municipalities in Luxembourg, and one in three bananas bought here are Fairtrade bananas.
Our RTL colleagues had also conducted a survey in advance and asked readers how important certain topics are to them. Out of 226 participants, around 52 per cent responded that Fairtrade is very important (67 people) or somewhat important (50 people) to them when shopping.
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