Western Morning News (Saturday)
Giving UK farmers the ‘Fair Trade’ treatment
A new way of buying food aims to bring the Fair Trade principle to farm and food businesses right here in the Westcountry. Martin Hesp looks at a new way of shopping local
THE bags of flour pictured represent something very special indeed. These 1.5 kilo units of plain flour rolling out of a wellknown Westcountry mill could signal a whole new way in which we will shop for our food. Indeed, they might well represent the beginning of a UK consumer revolution.
The big letters on each bag sum up the idea… It really is up to you – the ‘you’ being all of us – each and every consumer. In other words, the bags of flour could mark the very beginning of a UK journey which will see us consumers having a lot more control over the food we eat.
Milled by Matthews Cotswold Flour, this basic store cupboard item is the very first product to be rolled out under the new Consumer Brand label – born from an ethos which was started in France five years ago after news headlines announced the sad and horrifying fact that more than 700 farmers in that country were committing suicide each year.
Many of those deaths were occurring because farmers were going bankrupt in a cut-price industry which continues to squeeze producers of raw materials. We have, of course, seen similar stories in this country – who hasn’t heard reports of farmers losing money on every single pint of milk they produce?
When we see such tales, a great many of us shake our heads and think we’d be more than willing to pay a few extra pence a litre, but only if we knew it would go straight into the farmer’s pocket rather than be swallowed by some vast corporation.
That is where the Consumer Brand comes in. It is an initiative driven by consumers and volunteers working for a new Community Interest Company (CIC). And fair pay for farmers is only part of the story, because the concept represents a much more comprehensive set of parts than a basic form of Fair Trade concept.
Instead, the all-embracing Consumer Brand touches upon just about everything a shopper could wish to have some control over.
For example, you might say: “Okay, I am willing to pay a bit more so that the producer of the raw material will be given a fair return for their work, investment and time – but in return I’d like to be reassured that what I’m buying has been farmed in an environmentally friendly way…”
In France (where the programme is called C’est qui le patron? – Who Is The Boss?) this new mobilisation of consumer-power has really taken off over the past five years since those headlines revealed the number of farmer suicides. More than one in five shoppers (some 16 million ) regularly purchase at least one item produced under the system (including flour, eggs, wine, apple juice, honey, pasta etc).
Consumers in other European countries are joining forces to follow suit under various names. The 1.5 kilo bags produced by Matthews Cotswold Flour last week represent the very first Consumer Brand products to be launched in the UK.
Here’s how the initiative’s website describes the concept: “It’s time we stood up for what we want as consumers. It’s time we got products that are good for us while still being good for the environment. It’s time we made sure our farmers are paid a fair price so they can do a good job too.
“It’s time… to stand together, for what we want, for the food we deserve,” say the UK CIC team as they ask consumers to… “Join our community and add your voice to the food revolution.”
They go on to outline the five basics which will help to change the way we purchase food and drink.
“We build our community – people who share the same values come together to make a difference. We choose our products – together we decide the products we want to consume.
“We shape our products – collectively, we decide on the best product characteristics. We talk to the producers – the Consumer Brand team negotiate with producers, processors and retailers to bring our products to market…”
And finally: “We make it, support it, and buy it! The products we want become available in supermarkets for all to enjoy.”
The idea is that consumers will go to the website and take part in a simple voting procedure. I’ve done just that by clicking into the eggs section, and it’s fun. After flour, the Consumer Brand says eggs will be the second product to come under the It’s Up To You label – and on the website you can help them to decide exactly what sort of eggs the project should sell…
It takes less than a minute to click answers to various questions and watch the price of your preferred box of half a dozen eggs change. At the beginning you are confronted by a basic offering costing 75 pence – six eggs which could have been produced under any cut-price system, anywhere.
I then clicked options saying that I wanted my medium sized eggs to be
fully free range and produced locally to the packer. I also wanted no additives to be used in changing the yolk colour, but I was happy with a basic cardboard pulp box. However, I wanted the farmer to be paid a fair rate – plus adding extra to give them the capability to reinvest in farm. I also agreed to pay a couple of additional pence to support a fund dedicated to help egg producers reach zero carbon emissions.
As I clicked, I watched the cost of my half dozen eggs rise from 75p to £1.13 – but that is still a very competitive price compared to premium eggs sold in a supermarket.
The plain flour pictured, by the way, is priced at £1.31 – less than a well known premium brand, but slightly more than a supermarket’s own label cut-price offering.
“I do not believe any farmer could make a living growing wheat for flour priced at those really cheap levels,” said Bertie Matthews, the young managing director of Matthews Cotswold Flour who was keen to be the first to support the Consumer Brand initiative in Britain after his French milling partners had done the same across the Channel.
He told me the British farmers providing the Consumer Brand with wheat are now on a deal assuring them a set price per tonne over three years – at the same time, their agricultural practices have been given the official stamp of wildlife friendly approval from the RSPB and a new organisation called Fair To Nature.
So… good British flour produced by a highly reputable mill, sold at a competitive price to the consumer who can start baking with the comforting knowledge that their basic raw ingredient has been produced in an environmentally friendly way and that everyone in the supply chain – farmer, miller and retailer – has received a fair cut…What’s not to like?
As you can see, it’s far more than a simple fair trade style of initiative. And when I went to meet the people who have been working on the UK version and forming the new CIC, they were keen to emphasise this is a consumer-led exercise, not some clever propaganda exercise put together by large corporations.
“We have no titles in this initiative, we are just dedicated people,” said one of the Consumer Brand’s founders, David Poussier, when I joined the team to watch the first bags of flour being produced at the Matthews Cotswold Flour mill last week.
“I do not think fair trade can stand alone, we need to have fair trade and transparency,” he added. “From the beginning, we were very clear about the price we’d pay to the farmer. How do we reach this price? Simply by speaking with the farmers and speaking with the specialists we can be sure the price we pay will cover the costs the farmer will have and secure a normal living. At present, so many UK farmers are not breaking even.
“So for us fair trade is about transparency. Anyone will be able to see the invoices we pay the farmers.”
Pascal Hegglin told me: “What we do is create products with value. We come together as a group of people who share values. Who share the idea that there should be more transparency in the supply chain. People who believe that we do want to pay farmers a fair wage.”
It is free to join in and requires no financial commitment so why not have a go, and flex your consumer-power muscles at https:// www.theconsumerbrand.co.uk or on Instagram @theconsumerbranduk.