A rural worker selects arabic coffee beans at a farm in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Photograph: Mauricio Lima/AFP/Getty
Set up in 1992 by groups such as Christian Aid and Oxfam, the Fairtrade foundation seeks to promote better terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world. One of the ways it does this is by awarding the Fairtrade label - a registered trademark - to UK products that have given their producers higher than market prices.
To mark the start this week of Fairtrade fortnight - designed to boost awareness of the labelling scheme - the foundation announced that UK Fairtrade sales topped £140m for 2004. This was a 51% rise since 2003, while the number of Fairtrade certified products rose from 150 in 2003 to 834 today.
In the wider scheme of things, this is peanuts. Tesco, Britain's biggest supermarket, sold £30bn worth of products alone last year. Nevertheless, the growing popularity of fair trade products - there is even a magazine devoted to fair trade - has made the big boys sit up and take notice. Large coffee manufacturers such as Starbucks and Kraft (owners of the Kenco and Maxwell House brands) are beginning to develop their own fair trade criteria.
But beware. These companies are shunning the authentic Fairtrade label for a reason. All coffee carrying the Fairtrade label is 100% fair trade. Under the more relaxed criteria used by the big multinationals, only 30% of the beans they use need to be fair trade.
And the interest in coffee is not accidental. Coffee was the most popular fair trade product, with retail sales growing 44% to £49.3m, thanks to companies such as Cafedirect, a pioneer of fair trade tea and coffee.
