You would think that Cadbury expects a ticker-tape parade if you read the recent story in The Globe and Mail, about it becoming the largest candy manufacturer in Canada to sell fair-trade chocolate. Wow...you want to set off the fireworks and send in the marching bands! Finally a big corporate behemoth is embracing its role as a leader in social responsibility!
At least that's what you think until you read to the bottom of the second paragraph of the story, wherein it states "In total, 11 per cent of the Cadbury products sold in Canada will be certified."
Now I'm not the greatest mathematician in the world, but doesn't this mean that for 89% of their products they cannot certify that they are fair trade? I don't enjoy being the cynic (ok, maybe a little bit)...but this isn't even close to a glass half full scenario -- bascially 9/10ths of the glass is empty here...and this warranted a press release?
I wrote about this almost exactly a year ago on a entry entitled Corporate Social Responsibility -- Statistically S
peaking. In this blog entry, I wrote about how statistics can be massaged greatly by corporations to make themselves sound as they are doing significantly more than what is truly happening. Because you see these sound bites that we get don't give us the measurements/metrics and the meaning. Specifically the blog a year ago addressed some of the statistics that Starbucks was heralding regarding their "commitment" to fair-trade.Now don't get me wrong...I believe that every move, no matter how infinitesimal is better than none at all. My issue rests with corporations giving themselves "atta-boys" and expecting others to put them on a pedestal because of 11%. I mean a company spokesperson for Cadbury even has the audacity to say "Companies should be responsible about where they source". I guess they mean only 11% of the time.
This is just marketing spin...hoping that we are stupid enough to go out and buy because of the halos on these corporations' heads....luckily I can read between the lines.
So it's Sunday morning, so I guess I'll start by making the world a better place by going out and getting my Sta
rbucks coffee and a Dairy Milk bar!! Hmmmm.......
2 comments:
I felt I should comment because I just wrote an article on Cadbury's Fair Trade activities for the July issue of Inside Supply Management. I definitely see your point about the 11%! So many companies do this type of thing with their "good deeds" and it is up to all of us to play the cynic, actually, to make sure we are getting the full story as consumers and as professionals.
However, I believe the reason it is only 11% of all Cadbury products sold in Canada is because this FT certification only applies to their Dairy Milk bar. Cadbury sells everything from those Cadbury eggs at Easter to gum and other candies, so the Dairy Milk is just 11% of their product sold there. The reason the Fair Trade announcement is significant is because they are the first manufacturer of their size and scope to have one chocolate product labeled Fair Trade. The chocolate industry is definitely a hard cocoa bean to crack!... all kinds of human rights abuses, not to mention a lack of effort from companies that source from these farmers to actually go in and better the communities they are profiting from. So it did take awhile, according to everyone I spoke to for the story, but it's only their first step. I know for a fact it's a work in progress and there is a real passion there for making these changes. I'm sure some of what I learned could have had that spin put on it--after all, I am a member of the media!-- but I talk to many companies about sustainability and CSR, all the time. And there is something about the careful and realistic scope of their initiative that leads me to believe it is legit, and it will lead to good things. Hopefully, more than 11% of all their products in Canada will be certified as time goes on! For now, that Dairy Milk bar is the best they have.
I have to wonder, though: what are the other large chocolate manufacturers doing? Why isn't the Snickers or Hershey bar certified Fair Trade? It will be interesting to see if Hershey, Mars, Nestle, etc., take this announcement from Cadbury to heart and make real, documented and significant changes in their supply chains!
You cast your bread upon the waters and it comes back to you as a testimonial by a 'journalist' for a soulless, heartless, yet living corporation.
What do we call those things again?
Oh, yeah, zombies.
Post a Comment