“Fairtrade producers raise their voices to ask Nestlé to keep KitKat Fairtrade”, 23 June 2020

…Nestlé have informed Fairtrade they no longer plan to buy Fairtrade cocoa and sugar from some of the world’s most vulnerable small scale farmers. The move will mean a loss of almost £2 million (£1.95 million) in Fairtrade Premium each year for co-operatives in Côte d’Ivoire, Fiji and Malawi, representing 27,000 small scale producers. Nestlé’s decision will mean all future purchases of sugar will be from European sugar beet producers. Future purchases of cocoa may be from the same co-operatives, but only as part of Nestlé’s own Cocoa Plan initiative, meaning no Fairtrade Premium.

[A] typical cocoa farmer in West Africa lives below the extreme poverty line and earns on average 74p per day - less than half of a living income, but only a few pence more than the price of a KitKat. Besides the [COVID-19]…pandemic, farmers remain deeply affected by long-term endemic poverty, lack of services, low and unpredictable income and climate change. Fairtrade means access to children’s education, access to health centres, electricity to enable children to learn, as well as improved living and working conditions for farmers in the most remote areas where cocoa is grown.