Fairtrade

Everyone Deserves Their Fair Share

At Ben & Jerry's, we take fairness seriously. Whether it's how we treat our employees, give back to our community, or dream up new flavours for our customers, fairness factors into all that we do. That's why we want to make sure that the farmers we work with get a fair deal too. We support Fairtrade, a global movement working with farmers to get a better deal in countries disadvantaged by unfair global trade structures. We source five core ingredients on Fairtrade terms: Sugar, cocoa, vanilla, coffee, and bananas.

Back in 2006, we were the first ice cream maker in the world to use Fairtrade Certified vanilla And in 2010, we decided to commit fully to the cause by sourcing all the ingredients that can be Fairtrade, as Fairtrade, across all our flavours and all the countries where our ice cream is sold. We completed this globally by 2015. 

The trend worldwide in agriculture is all about getting bigger, a lot bigger. Fairtrade is important because it means a fairer price for farmers' products—in the face of unfair global trade structures. That's great news for farmers, their families and their communities.

But there's more to the Fairtrade story. Linked prosperity, the idea that those who are successful should work to improve the world around them, is one of Ben & Jerry's founding principles. Fairtrade puts this idea into action. All farmers in the Fairtrade system agree to meet the Fairtrade Standards that promote environmental protection, implement fair labour standards and support investment in their communities. The Fairtrade Premium, an additional amount of money paid on top of the fairer price that farmers get for their produce, supports those investments to happen.

The Living Income Accelerator

To build on the impact of our Fairtrade sourcing, we launched the Living Income Accelerator programme (or LIA, previously known as the Producer Development Initiative) partnering with Fairtrade. The LIA is a portfolio of specific programmes designed to accelerate smallholder producers’ journeys in our supply chain to achieve a sustainable income.

There are three primary objectives of the LIA:

• Price: farmers are protected from market volatility and have access to additional finance.
• Professionalisation: farmers are members of strong and inclusive co-operatives with improved productivity, leading to improved incomes.
• Protection: farmers take action to improve environmental protection and receive training to prevent child labour

The LIA is run by Fairtrade.

Read updates on Fairtrade and The LIA here.

Doesn't knowing that all the delectable ingredients in our flavours that can be Fairtrade are Fairtrade , make Ben & Jerry’s taste all the sweeter? Every time you pick up a product with the FAIRTRADE Mark (the green and blue symbol you see on each of our pints), you're contributing to farmers and their communities getting a better deal.