Ethical Tea Partnership welcomes M&S initiative - 07|03|2006

“Any initiative to support fair and ethical trade should be applauded and the Ethical Tea
Partnership (ETP) welcomes the announcement by Marks and Spencer that it is converting its tea and coffee to Fairtrade.

“The ETP and Fairtrade share the same aim of wanting to ensure decent living and working conditions on tea estates, but offer consumers a choice in how these aims are pursued. Consumers pay a price premium for Fairtrade tea for producers to reinvest in their business or community initiatives. The ETP estate monitoring scheme is funded entirely by its 18 member companies and provides consumers with reassurance that the tea they are buying has been responsibly produced.
 
 “While Fairtrade Fortnight promotes initiatives designed to address the issue of supply and demand, the ETP’s global programme monitors tea estates across the world to promote social responsibility in the world tea trade and ensure the ethical sourcing of tea.

“Since our monitoring programme started in 1997 we have witnessed significant improvements in conditions on estates in the countries where we are currently active.  We expect this trend to continue as we expand the geographical spread of our operations and build on the 600-plus estates we have monitored to date.

“In an initiative to help shoppers discover more about this work, the tea packing businesses that form the Ethical Tea Partnership are progressively featuring on-pack invitations to shoppers to 'Find out more about our membership of www.ethicalteapartnership.org working for a responsible tea industry'”.

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The 18 UK and overseas members of Ethical Tea Partnership are:  Accord Tea Services Ltd, Matthew Algie & Co Ltd, Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate Ltd, D J Miles & Co Ltd, Drie Mollen, Finlay Beverages Limited, Gold Crown Foods Ltd, Imporient UK Ltd, Keith Spicer Ltd, Metropolitan Tea Co Ltd, The Nambarrie Tea Company Ltd, Sara Lee, The Tetley Group, R Twining & Company Ltd, Unilever (Europe), Tazo Tea Company, Williamson Fine Teas Ltd, The Windmill Tea Co Ltd.

March 7 2006

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