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A Good Taste in the Mouth

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By Roger Trapp

The Independent (London)
July 16, 2000

Chocolate lovers who have suffered years of guilt over their cravings can now hold their heads up high. The Day Chocolate Company does not claim to cut calorie intake, but it does say that those who eat its Divine bar can feel better because of the way the sweet's produced.


As the company's managing director, Sophi Tranchell, says, it is "the treat you can eat with a clear conscience". The reason is simple. The Day Chocolate Company is a "fair trade" business - part of the Fairtrade group of firms that takes into consideration the interests of suppliers in the developing world.

By owning a third of the business and having seats on the Day Chocolate Company board, the 35,000 farmers in the Kuapa Kokoo cocoa co-operative in Ghana have a large say in how the chocolate bar is produced and sold.

The business structure, enabling an organisation from "the South" to have a stake in an enterprise in "the North", has been recognised by the UK's Design Council. The council has given the company "Millennium Product" status and put the Divine bar in the Dome.

This week the firm also battles it out for an innovation honour in the Business in the Community's Awards for Excellence. It faces much larger businesses in DIY chain B&Q, waste company Biff and professional services firm KPMG. These awards, now in their third year and sponsored by the Department of Trade & Industry, are recommended by the British Quality Foundation with the aim of promoting corporate social responsibility.

It is hard to question Day's commitment to social responsibility. The company was set up to help improve the lives of cocoa bean growers at survival level because the market price for their produce was below production costs of the crop. Significantly, the firm's loan from NatWest for set-up costs was guaranteed by the Department for International Development. It was the success of Cafe Direct, the Fairtrade coffee introduced in 1992 with the help of TWIN Trading, another Fairtrade company, which is a shareholder in Day, that prompted the founders to think about chocolate.

According to Bob Doherty, Day's head of sales and marketing, chocolate has a retail value of pounds 4bn in the UK. "If we developed a successful chocolate brand we could have a major impact on alleviating social injustice," he says. At the heart of the company is the principle of payments to the growers calculated on what it costs to produce the beans and how much farmers need for a decent standard of living.

Just 18 months after the first Divine bar appeared, the company appears to be making its presence felt. Nearly a million bars have been sold, and the product is available in about 5,000 outlets - including Sainsbury's, Iceland, Somerfield and Morrisons. The Co-op sells a co-branded version. Mr Doherty says the firm charges a premium to cover paying the growers well above the market price for the cocoa and having a high chocolate content in the bars.

It is not possible to offset higher costs through the economy of scale enjoyed by the multinationals such as Cadbury Schweppes, but consumers, believes Mr Doherty, are "prepared to pay for doing the right thing - if if it tastes good".

As might be expected of a company that has as its third shareholder the Body Shop, Day is not content just to hope well-off consumers will support its niche. The Divine bar is seen as a mainstream product and marketed as such.

It was the first fair trade product advertised on TV and carries an endorsement by the charity Comic Relief, which also backs the growers' co-op.

Another supporter is Christian Aid, which, along with Oxfam and Cafod, has helped build up local community interest. Mr Doherty, who came to Day after an MBA and a career in pharmaceuticals sales, says church bodies, schools and community groups have all helped demonstrate the importance of consumer pressure. Children are of special interest in this market. So, later this year, Day launches a chocolate-filled product on children's TV, coinciding with Comic Relief's launch of a schools initiative.

At the same time, the company is anxious to demonstrate it is not all about promotion. Aware that it is "important to be confident about the whole supply chain", Day has selected as its manufacturer a German family business that makes chocolate products for other fair trade companies in Europe. Fittingly for a company that will learn this week whether it has won a Business in the Community award, it's the involvement of a variety of individuals and groups that is seen as the route to success.


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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.