We live in an age when consumers are more informed than ever about what they buy, eat, and use. Local producers and chefs are educating their customers so they understand exactly where the food they consume comes from and how it was grown or raised. People are eager to educate themselves, to spend money on products and ingredients that benefit their bodies, environment and communities. That is why buying fair trade ingredients has a tremendous social impact. They have an ethical integrity.
I want to give the consumer an understanding of the process, explaining how an ingredient qualifies for fair trade certification and detail the steps involved in how that product reaches a supermarket shelf. Every chapter will have an interview with a fair trade producer co— operative that will provide background information and describe the benefits of belonging to the fair trade certification program and will outline their business mode.
Fairtrade brings together the cocoa farmers in Belize, with the campesina coffee growers of Chiapas with the banana farmers and workers of Ecuador, the Palestinian olive growers of the West Bank and the coconut milk farmers of Sri Lanka. Fairtrade is the story of farmers and workers in the global south, of coffee roasters and chocolate lovers in North America sharing the desire for a better world.