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Because many of you will be talking to business people and the media about the fair trade label, this section provides some very basic information about the technical and legal aspects of the international fair trade certification scheme which Fair TradeMark Canada participates in.
Consumers and business want quality coffee and are sceptical about many modern marketing claims. Independent, third party monitoring is an essential element of the fair trade labelling process. As a membership based non-profit corporation, fair TradeMark Canada members, from churches, unions, consumer and business groups provide the moral and professional credibility for certification.
As the only Canadian affiliate of the international fair trade label federation or movement, we participate in commodity based registers of producers of coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar and honey, each of which has its own criteria and registered producer/supplier lists.
Because of limited resources, we are currently focusing on coffee. Coffee is the second largest legally traded commodity after petroleum, over 60% is produced by small family farmers and 51% of Canadians drink coffee daily and 61% drink at least one cup per week. Our membership in the international movement as a sort of "franchisee", also allows us to certify tea, cocoa, sugar and honey. A number of composite products are currently available in Europe as well, such as chocolate, cocoa powder, candies, etc.
A portion (currently one third) of the licence fees charged to Canadian companies to certify the content of their coffee packages goes to the International Coffee Register (ICR) and to the coordinating office of the international fair trade label movement to cover the costs of annual visits to producer groups, maintenance of producer and commodity contract databases, monitoring of international trademark compliance and auditing the books of importer licensees to ensure compliance with licensing agreements.
The remainder of our licence fee income is used for promotion of the label in Canada and the auditing of Canadian licensee books to ensure compliance.
TransFair International is responsible for the approval of importer licences and Fair TradeMark Canada (also known as TransFair Canada) is responsible for the licensing and monitoring of Canadian roasters and distributors.
Our licence agreements allow us independent access to the corporate records of licensees and provide for quarterly and annual reports, usually in conjunction with their own internal audits. These agreements bind us to the confidentiality of commercial information of licensees which we might see during our inspections. They also cover details such as the display of the seal and our address as the independent certifier on packaging, preview of promotional materials and many other details of the use of our trademarked seal/logo.
You might be the first contact with some coffee companies. We welcome enquiries and requests for further information and can provide more detail, including copies of licence agreements.
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