1. Fairtrade in the Mainstream Katie Stafford

2. Fairtrade in context  Commitment to being a Fair Partner  First tier suppliers - good labour standards  UK farmers – milk and lamb pledge  Communities – Marks & Start  Small Suppliers – Shell Foundation and Traidcraft  Commodity Farmers - Fairtrade

3. Fairtrade – the M&S story  June 2005 – all tea and coffee in Café Revive  Jan 2006 – Fairtrade cotton introduced  March 2006 – 100% tea and coffee Fairtrade  Jan 2007 – biggest ever Fairtrade cotton buy  Feb 2007 - all jams using Fairtrade sugar  Sept 2007 – biggest T-shirt line in store Fairtrade cotton

4. Why Fairtrade? Why not? Why? Own brand! ------------> Customer Trust Can do ourselves? -----------> Small farmers meeting min std NOT same! Not that fair anyway? ---------> Fairtrade good baseline Still more we can do over and above Fairtrade rules Support change from within

5. Case studies… … scale and commitment

6. Cotton in India - Agrocel  Farmer development organisation – supplying inputs, training, contracts to buy  Started to supply cotton to M&S in 2004 - via spinners (Maral)  Good understanding of farmer needs, costs etc  M&S – Shell Foundation link up to help improve quality and business skills - improve customer relationships, building stocks, links to spinners etc  M&S make first forward contract for cotton  Growing business – M&S offer £600k pre-finance agreement to fund Fairtrade premium and input costs – allows for further growth  Win-win – quality cotton, good price to farmers, near to spinning mills, good environmental practice, pre-finance SAVES money

7. Cotton from West Africa  Cotton Trade in W Africa dominated by traders  Commitment to 2000 tonnes from West Africa via COPACO (major french trader)  Relationships at trader level… +’ve logistics, volume, language -‘ve information flows to farmers (price, quality, volumes, impacts)

8. Tea and coffee  Good knowledge of existing sources and standards  Gap assessments for whole supply base  100% conversion within 6 months – partnership with FLO and FTF  Customers responded well  Scale and authority = Brand not choice

9. Making Fairtrade part of what we stand for…..

10. LESSONS – taking it to scale  Good for brand – shows commitment not just choice  Don’t profiteer – M&S firm commitment to no higher margins  Good for impact on farmers – number of farmers and also interactions with business  Vital that we all work towards sustainable business relationships – don’t just leave it to NGOs and commodity traders  Think supply chain – cotton in developing countries – not just farmers who need better trade

11. CHALLENGES  Producer support – technical assistance AND business development  Quality/availability/location – many costs in Fairtrade cotton supply chain are to ‘non-farmer’ issues  Fairtrade and FLO – need support to catch up with the pace of change  Commodities - used mainly as ingredients not single products, limiting growth  Impacts – what impact is Fairtrade having? is all Fairtrade equal?

12. Thanks for listening!! Questions……