UK – Liberation: a new fair trade brand

Twin Trading and Equal Exchange, two of the pioneers of fair trade in the UK, have launched in November a new fair trade brand and company called Liberation.

Liberation provides a range of cashew nuts and peanuts and is currently available in various fair trade and wholefood shops and online stores. The range will be launched in major supermarkets in January.

The new company, Liberation Foods CIC, was set up by Twin Trading and Equal Exchange with the support of Comic Relief and The Hunter Foundation. The company is unique in the nut industry because the smallholder nut farmers and gatherers from developing countries own 42% of the shares, making them the largest single stakeholder.

The farmers are represented on the board of directors, will have their voices heard at the Annual General Meetings and will receive a share of profits when a dividend is paid.
The farmers already receive the fair deal that comes with Fairtrade certification and the Fairtrade premium which is spent on social and community projects. Involving them in the brand that delivers their produce to the consumer is a way of making the ?Fairtrade connection? even more direct.

?We are proving that this alternative model is commercially sustainable and successful,? said Duncan White, head of the nuts team at Twin Trading. ?Our aim is to show that there is a way of doing business which benefits all those in the supply chain and gives all those along that chain a say in decision-making as well. This inclusion and stakeholding in the business puts the smallholder farmers in a central and key position, unlike any other business in the nut industry.

Andy Good, managing director of Equal Exchange said: ? With nearly 30 years? experience of putting small farmers and producers first within our fair trade business model at Equal Exchange, launching Liberation will finally prove that with the right business ethos the nut market doesn?t have to be a tough one to crack for small-scale farmers.?

Liberation Foods say that they chose the Community Interest Company structure ?because of the clarity implicit in the structure of the company?s purpose – that it exists to serve a community of interest which in this case is marginalised nut producers in the developing world, currently Malawi, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Brazil, Peru, El Salvador and India. Liberation will share profits with more than 22,000 small-scale nut farmers and gatherers.?

www.chooseliberation.com
www.twin.org.uk
www.equalexchange.co.uk