I ate a Nestle's Kitkat.
For a long time now and for the much documented reasons of some of Nestles ethical policies I have avoided their products where possible. Hardly a huge sacrifice in the plethora of commercial alternatives but some products were missed more that others, a certain chocolate bar among them. But now the long lamented Kitkat has gone Fair trade. No less a man that the Archbishop of York John Sentamu endorsed the move so I thought to myself that can't be bad ... in fact, I reasoned I almost have a moral duty to make a purchase to applaud them for their actions and encourage them further down the road of chocolate fairness.
But now, wrapper in the bin, crumbs licked off my fingers, I am thinking that while KitKat may have gone Fair-trade and proudly sports its new ethical credentials with the obligatory advertising logo, but the Company haven't reversed the policies to which I have long objected. In which case what has really changed? Is this all no more than marketing smoke and mirrors? What does it mean for the Fair-Trade Dairy Milk now that Kraft are taking over? I know there is lots of chocolate on sale who's company credentials are more sound ... most of it tastes great in the mouth and in the Spirit too but then again that Kit Kat didn't half taste good. That said, perhaps it's 'mea culpa' on the ethics and so it may have been the last one that I eat for some time yet. Unless you all convince me otherwise.
4 comments:
I haven't yet seen a Fairtrade Kitkat on sale so I am still awaiting this particular dilemma. It is a similar length of time since I last ate one and I have been pondering the same questions.
I think this might be something I can pick up in my Fairtrade fortnight (a week late for various reasons) service in march.
The thing I keep coming back to with all these issues is "there's always an easy answer and it probably isn't a good one"
Anyway, absolution granted, in so far as it is in my gift so to do!
Unfortunately, the main motivation for companies such as Nestle is profit. Therefore, the best way to influence them is to have their sales go up when they do something right.
Like 'positive disciple' used on children, we need to ignore (boycott) bad behaviour, and reward the good. Hopefully, by buying their FT products, and ONLY FT products, they're more likely to expand that part of their business, and develop a culture change generally.
Whilst I support the boycott, if we continue with it regardless, it won't do anything to encourage change. We become non-customers, whose opinion doesn't count as far as Nestle's concerned.
Maybe our role is not just to buy the kit-kat, but to contact the company applauding the move (maybe every time we have one?!), and as customers with a voices now, push them to do more.
Everyone needs to make their own decision. Thanks for your awareness and support of campaigns against Nestlé malpractice. To put Nestlé's Fairtrade KitKat in context, this involves just 1% of its coca purchase and is being used for Public Relations purposes to divert attention from the following facts.
Nestlé has been taken to court in the US for failing to act on a 2001 agreement to end child slavery in its cocoa supply chain and in the past has boycotted a meeting by Senator Harkin (co-sponsor of the Harkin-Engel Protocol in the US) called to examine lack of progress. There are 11 million people dependent on cocoa farming in West Africa, many of them dependent on Nestlé. The KitKat products involved in this scheme will benefit only 6,000 farmers. There is a danger that the improved conditions for these farmers will divert attention from the many others outside the scheme, and be used deliberately to this end by Nestlé.
Stop the Traffik, founded by Steve Chalke, the United Nations Special Advisor on Community Action Against Human Trafficking, said in response to the announcement that ‘two finger’ Kit Kats and all of Nestlé's other chocolate products "“will continue to exploit the chocolate slaves of the Ivory Coast from where Nestlé source most of their cocoa”." See:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/10757
It is interesting to note that the amount Nestlé will pay on the Fairtrade premium for the cocoa it is due to buy in 2010 (less than £400,000) is less than 1% of expenditure on its current UK Nescafé advertising campaign (£43 million). For its money, Nestlé has generated unwarranted good news stories around the world.
This is a similar situation to its Fairtrade coffee, which involves just 0.1% of the coffee farmers dependent on it, but is used to suggest it is making a huge difference, providing cover for continued unethical practices.
In addition, Nestlé is the most boycotted company in the UK and one of the four most boycotted companies on the planet according to GMIPoll because of the way it pushes its breastmilk substitutes. Nestlé systematically breaches the baby milk marketing standards adopted by the World Health Assembly, undermines breastfeeding and contributes to the unnecessary death and suffering of babies. According to UNICEF, 1.5 million babies die around the world every year because they are not breastfed. Even Nestlé's Global Public Affairs Manager, Dr. Gayle Crozier Willi, admitted in 2007 that Nestlé is 'widely boycotted'.
Fairtrade KitKat will be added to the boycott list. The boycot has forced some changes in Nestlé marketing practices and policies, but the company, the market leader, refuses to make all necessary changes and is still the worst of the baby food companies. At the present time it is being targeted for practices that include claiming its infant formula 'protects' babies - it does not, babies fed on it are more likely to become sick than breastfed babies and in conditions of poverty, they are more likely to die. See:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2009/11/nestle-fairtrade-kitkat.html
Perhaps most disgraceful of all is that the UK Minister for Trade and Development, Gareth Thomas MP, brushed aside a question at a UN press conference about Nestlé's record in developing countries by citing the benefits to the farmers supplying cocoa for the Fairtrade KitKat. For what I think he should have said see:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2009/12/nestle-kitkat-minister.html
Nestlé's Fairtrade product should be seen in this context. According to a recent report the Fairtrade mark has already been damaged through its association with Nestlé. See:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2009/12/nestle-damages-fairtrade-mark.html
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