Fairtrade Frequently Asked Campaigner Questions

The classic Fairtrade Mark, with the black background, indicates that all the ingredients that can be Fairtrade certified are Fairtrade-certified. For example with a chocolate bar, the company has was purchased enough Fairtrade cocoa, sugar, vanilla and any other relevant ingredients to produce every chocolate bar they sell which bares a FAIRTRADE Mark. 

The Fairtrade Mark with a white background is the Fairtrade Sourced Ingredient (FSI) Mark. This indicates that one of the ingredients is Fairtrade-sourced, and the name of that ingredient will appear on the side of the Mark. So in this case cocoa is the Fairtrade ingredient. It may be the case the sugar, for example, in this chocolate is not Fairtrade-sourced – often this can be the case if the sugar is instead grown in the UK or Europe where Fairtrade certification does not operate. 

Since being introduced several years ago, this Mark has been part of the growth of Fairtrade sales in a number of areas, including cocoa, meaning more farmers and workers earning more and able to drive positive change in their communities. You can find out more about our range of FAIRTRADE Marks on our website. 

Companies using the Mark with the arrow (as per below), which symbolises the Mass Balance model, must ensure they buy 100 per cent of the corresponding amounts of the relevant Fairtrade ingredients. Tracking Fairtrade commodities through various stages of processing can be extremely difficult, where in many cases, farming cooperatives sell to external processing factories who also deal with non-Fairtrade certified products. As a result, Fairtrade certified commodities are not kept separate and may mix with non-Fairtrade ingredients, so we cannot guarantee that the Fairtrade commodity in a specific product bearing the ”Mass Balance” mark is in fact Fairtrade certified.

The key point is that farmers and workers still receive the exact same benefits under the mass balance system. The amount sold as Fairtrade must match the amount purchased, so in the example you cited below, although that packet of tea may contain Fairtrade tea mixed with non-certified tea, the Fairtrade-certified tea farmers will still receive the full benefits of selling that amount of product on Fairtrade terms. In the case of Assam Tea, you can find more information about the current situation and our approach to Assam Tea on our website.

This short video explains further how the mass balance model works, how it links to traceability along the supply chain, and why it can be also used to increase the amount small-scale farmers can sell at a fairer price and therefore increase their income.

https://vimeo.com/207597765?embedded=true&source=vimeo_logo&owner=12482548

Your decision to choose a product bearing the Fairtrade Mark helps to convince companies to invest in buying Fairtrade ingredients on Fairtrade terms which is only going to maintain and improve the impact felt by farmers. 

Fairtrade doesn’t have a shop to buy Fairtrade products. Products that have the fairtrade mark are labelled with the Fairtrade logo and available in a wide range of shops. We have a list on the website of what stores stock Fairtrade items, Buying Fairtrade - Fairtrade Foundation - Where to find Fairtrade products. 

Since the sad closure of Traidcraft, some people have told us it’s been more difficult to buy wholesale Fairtrade products. If you are having trouble, look through this volunteer-created database of suppliers of all sorts of Fairtrade goods. Some of the larger providers include Ethical Superstore, JTS and Oxfam. 

You can also check out a huge range of places to buy Fairtrade on our Buying Fairtrade webpages. 

You can check out the Community Action Guide for more information on various Fairtrade campaigning schemes, how to get involved and how to renew your commitments and awards. 

Your username will be set as the email address you have chosen as your key contact. If you are using the same email address for more than one account, we will ask you to choose a suffix, this word will have to added at the end of your email when logging in as your username. E.G. [email protected] would become [email protected] for your username.  

Go to log in page. Click that you are an existing user and a log-in option will appear. Write your username (email address) and then tick the reset password box. Then click submit. Then check your email to find reset code that has been sent to you. copy that reset code into the reset code box, on the reset page, which you should be automatically sent to. Enter new password and then submit new password.

The new Fairtrade Community Space launched at the end of May 2023, and you can now use this make or renew any Fairtrade Community commitments. If you are an existing key contact for a group, you should have received an email with your log in details for the Community Space. If you did not, please check your 'junk' or 'spam' folders then contact [email protected] if you still can't find an email from us.

Try out the Community Space now and check out the user guide for more details on how to make and renew applications.

To give all campaigner time to adjust to the new platform, all existing Fairtrade statuses has been automatically renewed until August 2023. You can find more information about the new communities platform on our website. 

We are currently working on improving our Communties Map, but in the meantime, you can download Fairtrade Campaign groups database. We update this on the first of every month while our map is being updated, and it covers all Schools, Places of Worship, Communities and Universities that are signed up and have given us permission to share their details.

Unfortunately, we do not provide stickers with the Fairtrade logo. We offer Fairtrade online digital badges and certificates when you achieve Fairtrade status, that you can print out and display. We also have a link for buying Fairtrade commodities that all have the Fairtrade logo on to show the product is Fairtrade certified, which you can find here; https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/buying-fairtrade/. 

To update, please email saying you’d like to update the key contact. Include in the email; the name and postcode of your community, the old key contact's name and the new key contact's full name and email address.  

Yes. A community group can be any group 3 people and over. If your village, hamlet or any variation of a group of people would like to sign up to be a Fairtrade Community that is allowed.   

Unfortunately, we no longer offer places to be diocese, and ask for each church to sign up on to the system separately. This is to make it easier and more efficient to keep track of and contact with our Fairtrade Places of Worship.  If you are signing up for the first time, then we ask that you sign up for each church separately. If you already signed up as a diocese before we changed our system, we recommend that you sign up your churches again separately.  

If you would like one person to still oversee all church accounts, then we are able to do this, but we will have to put a suffixes on your username, for the system to know which account you are logging on to at a time. We recommend that different people become key contact, but if you do wish one person for all accounts there should be no problem using suffixes and creating multiple church accounts with the same user information.  

No, we currently do not offer Fairtrade talks. However, we do have pre-written presentations and scripts in our Resource Library (view presentation here for adult audience, and view here for resources for school audiences) so that our campaigners can go out into their community and spread the word of Fairtrade.  

Also, during Fairtrade Fortnight we often run Big Fairtrade Get Togethers, which you can tune into or watch the recordings in your groups afterwards. These only happen at specific times of the year so sign up to our Latest News to keep up to date on events. 

Unfortunately, because of issues pertaining to the Highway code rules, many Fairtrade towns have been advised by local council in the recent years to not have Fairtrade Town logo/ status on their road signs. For this reason, we do not have any logos or supply information concerning Fairtrade on road signs so as not to breach Highway code rules. Any Fairtrade Towns that have done so in recent years will have done so in arrangement with their local council and not in partnership with Fairtrade.

Yes, Fairtrade does offer PLI to Communities who run events and stalls in their local area. Due to having have a limited number of licenses, we work directly with the groups who will get the most out of being on the Fairtrade Communities PLI. If you would like to enquire about being a part of our Communities PLI scheme, please contact [email protected].

Unfortunately at the moment we do not have any printed materials or merchandise available. In order to reduce our environmental impact and to focus our limited resources more directly on driving the maximum possible benefit for farmers and workers, we have reduced the volume of printed materials and merchandise which we create.  

We expect to continue to create occasional printed resources and pieces of merchandise at particular times of the year or to promote particular campaigns. 

Fairtrade Fortnight 2024 will be moving to September as part of our year-long milestone celebration as we approach 30 years of the FAIRTRADE Mark in UK shops and homes. 2024 will be our big ‘three-oh’ birthday, so we want to use the occasion to highlight how 30 years of working together has made the FAIRTRADE Mark a leader of life-changing impact for farmers and workers across the world.

So next Fairtrade Fortnight will be from Monday 9 September - Sunday 22 September 2024.

Throughout 2024 there will be lots of opportunities to get involved with our activities, and we'll be in touch soon with more details. But you can click here if you want to find out more about our plans for Fairtrade Fortnight 2024.

Thank you for donating to Fairtrade! If possible, the easiest way to give a donation is via credit or debit card at: www.fairtrade.org.uk/donate. If you are unable to donate via credit or debit card, you can find information on how to donate by post or by bank transfer at: https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/get-involved/donate/.

Unfortunately due to the size of our team and the volume of enquiries for support on educational projects we receive, we do not have the capacity to respond to requests like this with any further information. There is a wealth of information, interviews and statistics are available on both our website and the Fairtrade International website.  We wish you all the best with your project.