New thinking in international trade? A case study of The Day Chocolate Company

Abstract

This paper explores the experience of The Day Chocolate Company (Day) in connecting small-scale cocoa farmers more directly into global markets by making the farmers significant shareholders, and therefore equity owners, within this fair trade company. It examines how Day combines both social and business goals, thus providing an alternative model to conventional international trade. The paper investigates the positive impacts that this unique fair trade model has achieved on Kuapa Kokoo (Kuapa) members in Ghana from the Fairtrade relationship coupled with the equity stake and explores how Day has achieved its business goals in what is a highly competitive UK chocolate market. Further, it explores the challenges the company has faced and the lessons learnt over the past six years. Overall, the paper concludes that Day could not have been successful in meeting its objectives without cocoa farmer ownership being at the centre of the brand. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Gender, health, labor, and inequities: a review of the fair and alternative trade literature

“…These findings describe women's access to credit (Bacon et al 2008), the promotion of entrepreneurship (Doherty and Tranchell 2005), access to training opportunities for women (Bezaury 2007;Imhof and Lee 2007), and health benefits as in the case of citrus farms in South Africa (Robins et al 1999). Additionally, because women members can participate in discussions regarding the allocation of the Fair Trade premium, targeted community investments have been reported (McMurtry 2009;Torgerson 2007) as women have exerted their influence by voting to spend the social premium on services such as childcare in banana-producing organisations in the Windward Islands .…”

“…There are a few exceptions to this (Doherty and Tranchell 2005;Moore 2010;Moseley 2008; including a cocoa co-operative in Ghana that was initially proposed by women (Doherty and Tranchell 2005) and a South African land reform initiative currently producing wine (Moseley 2008) that mandated equal gender participation in order to access government grants. Bassett (2010) writes about a co-operative in Burkina Faso with 40 % female membership, though this is linked to the organization's direct relationship with a Northern company whose CEO purposefully sought to involve women (a co-operative in a similar region without this direct relationship reported women's participation at 6 %).…”

“…Further exploring the characteristics of women's participation, there is conflicting data with regards to women's involvement in administrative roles within the producer organization. Some studies of cocoa in Ghana and bananas in the Windward Islands find women's involvement to be quite high (Doherty and Tranchell 2005;Tiffen 2002; and Bacon (2010a) reports that women occupy general manager positions in Nicaragua's three largest Fair Trade co-operatives. Lyon (2008), reporting on a coffee co-operative, notes some decision-making roles for women though notes that these are concentrated in specific non-coffee projects.…”

“…Some studies also note that fair trade may improve general health by lowering environmental disease risks through eco-labelling initiatives (Boot et al 2003), decreased deforestation (Taylor 2007), and a reduced incidence of water-borne illness (Doherty and Tranchell 2005) in fair trade.…”

Corporate social responsibility and developing countries

“…Fair Trade was a grassroots movement in the 1970s-1980s, new institutions such as the Fair Trade Labelling Organizations International (FLO) and the European Fair Trade Association (EFTA) were created in the 1990s, currently we find the movement in a strong mainstreaming phase (Nicholls et al, 2005). While Fair Trade take the interests of Southern producers and Northern traders and consumers, the GIM and BOP concepts want to empower Southern producers to climb the value chain latter and go beyond natural recource based business models of producing and selling, for instance, fair trade labelled chocolate and coffee (Adams et al, 2006;Doherty et al, 2005;Golding et al, 2005;Parrish et al, 2005;Taylor et al, 2005).…”