Fairtrade Sales at the Union

Some information that I recieved a few weeks ago - the basic gist is that sales of Fairtrade products at the Student Union shop haven't been doing very well at all - boo!

- Fairtrade products account for less than 2% of the Union shop's turnover, as of October 20o6
- Confectionary products - i.e. chocolate bars - are only in the bottom half of top-selling products.
- After a previous trial in vending machines did not go well, the Shop manager does not think that overall demand has improved enough to warrant a fresh trial.
- Sales of TeaDirect boxes of teabags are outsold by non-Fairtrade Tetleys teabags by almost two-to-one.

The one glimmer of hope is that Cafedirect jars of instant coffee do outsell the non-Fairtrade; this is by about a 3:2 ratio (i.e. 3 Cafedirect sold for every 2 non-Fairtrade sold)

This kind of, unfortunately, works in a cycle - the lower sales of Fairtrade get, the fewer products are stocked as they give way to products with higher sales turnover, and the few products are stocked, the less choice there is and sales are likely to dip again.

So, the message - if you want a Divine or Dubble chocolate bar, or Fairtrade tea or coffee - buy it from the Union shop and help to give Fairtrade sales a bit of a lift!!