Monday, October 25, 2010

Shape up Greece!



I found two Fairtrade labeled products in my supermarket! It's one brand of coffee and a cocoa. I was so happy to find them that it took me a while before I started thinking about why I haven't seen them before. But it's actually pretty obvious why, and the reson is annoying as hell.

These products are in the supermarket as they are organic and have been placed on the shelf with "organic foods". You can not find the organic coffee next to the other coffee brands. Only in this specific part of the store. Imagine that my supermarket is as huge as... probably 500 sq.m It has 4 floors and I don't know how many hundreds of customers in a day, and they have 2 things with a Fairtrade label. These aren't imported for the label. That I was able to find them was a total coincidence.

This article, written by Katia Antoniadi, confirms my suspicions. For those of you who don't read Greek, I can tell you that the article also says 65 % of the Greeks don't know the meaning of the words "fair trade". And that from the few Greek companies that even replyed to a survey, made by Consumers International, the commercial directors didn't know what products were in this category.

It's clear to anyone that this is an area in which Greece has to improve. I will do my part. Friends are hereby invited to my Fairtrade Coffee on Wednesday. Shall we say around seven?

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