The Fairtrade Foundation (FF) has launched a Fairtrade at Work campaign to encourage employers to switch to having Fairtrade products including fruit, tea, coffee and biscuits available to staff.
The FF commissioned a YouGov survey to coincide with the Fairtrade at Work scheme - which revealed that only 17 per cent of UK workers say their companies serve Fairtrade products at work.
The survey also shows that two out of five employees think their company should make Fairtrade products available to staff at work.
The campaign has been welcomed by pioneers of Fairtrade like Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) - the parent of the Co-operative Bank and Co-operative Insurance - which inaugurated the office switch to Fairtrade products in 1997, and has since been challenging other top companies to do the same.
Barry Clavin, ethical policies manager at CFS, said: “Co-operative Financial Services is proud to be the UK's largest workplace consumer of Fairtrade products and encourages all other organisations to support Fairtrade. There really can't be a more meaningful but simple demonstration of how business can be a force for good through its everyday purchasing.
“By demonstrating that we care about farmers in developing countries we reinforce the message that we care about our employees as well.”
Harriet Lamb, executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, said: “This campaign aims to see the availability of Fairtrade products in the workplace match that in the shops. Today over a third of our food and drink is consumed away from home and there is still enormous potential for more Fairtrade sales in that sector so more and more producers can benefit from Fairtrade. Any good company will want to respond to the mood of their employees and some top companies have set a model for many more to emulate.”
