Fair Trade Your October with Global Exchange

Global Exchange has 31 creative ideas to celebrate a Fair Trade October.

Here are a couple I like:

• Find out which stores in your neighborhood sell fair trade chocolate and buy your Halloween candy there.
• Host a screening of the Dark Side of Chocolate… they even include a tool kit with everything you need
• Check out the rest of the Fair Trade October ideas

Buying Fair Trade items helps prevent slavery by supporting sustainable markets for vulnerable people in developing economies.  It also helps fight slavery by sending a message to companies that don’t support Fair Trade, giving them a business incentive to support sustainable markets.

When I buy chocolate and other candy from Hershey, MARS, and Nestle today, those companies can’t assure me that my products weren’t grown, harvested, distributed, and even manufactured by slaves and child labor.  I used to love M&M’s, but they don’t taste as good to me when I picture a slave picking the cocoa for CEO Paul Michaels at Mars.

I’m glad to hear that Hershey has responded to pressure from the Raise the Bar Hershey campaign, and announced that they are committing to be 100% Fair Trade by 2020.  While that’s better than NOT committing to becoming Fair Trade at all, it’s still 7 years away.  I guess if Hershey is asking the farmers and laborers to wait 7 years for Fair Trade practices, then Hershey can wait 7 years for me to buy their products.  In the meantime, I’m keeping an eye on Nestle and Mars to follow suit, and I’ll keep buying chocolate and coffee that are Fair Trade now.

What is your reaction?  How do you decide which candy, costume, or products to buy for Halloween? Click here to leave a comment, or click on the bubble next to the title of the post.