While organic struggled and brands promoted themselves towards oblivion, Fairtrade proved surprisingly hardy during the recession. Some principles, it seemed, were non-negotiable.
Today the movement finds itself under fire, with a report by the Institute of Economic Affairs damning Fairtrade as inefficient and unproven. Multinationals such as Nestlé, the free-market think tank argues, make a far more tangible contribution to helping overseas farmers out of poverty.
The Guardian – whose readers surely represent the gooey sweet-spot of Fairtrade’s demographic – even deploys the ‘S’ word in its headline on the story: Starbucks.
(For Guardianistas, of course, Starbucks is both shorthand for the evils of globalisation and the place you take your MacBook to work on that unpublished novel about gay environmental campaigners in 18th century Venezuela.)
You can debate the rights and wrongs of globalisation as long as you like. Small-time farmers are exploited by western companies. Without those very same companies, the farmers might not have any livelihood at all. And so on.
Like any think tank, the IEA obviously has its own agenda to promote: in this instance, the belief that trade should be wholly unfettered. The Guardian notes wryly how the report describes moves to stop child labour as "the whims of western consumers".
The IEA has rather missed the point. With Cadbury, Nestlé and others getting on board, Fairtrade is more in the mainstream than ever. The movement’s legacy will be not as a rival to the global giants, but as a key part of their ethos.
Increasingly the public wants chocolate that’s responsibly, humanely sourced (and free of orang-utan fingers). And what the consumer wants, they soon get.
That’s what a free market does best.
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