Hypocrisy of Fairtrade

I do not know how to react to the Fairtrade sign in the supermarkets. Some of the supermarkets sell coffee and bananas that had this sign but many other products do not have. Switching to Fairtrade bananas would cost $3-4 millions extra to Sainsbury's. Chances are they would invest more money in advertising this fact on TV, radio and the print media. This is not a very big amount for such a company but they would like to take the advantage of the customers emotions. They would make them think that the store is doing good for the producers in the developing countries.

As showing the sign of Fairtrade was not enough, they would have a picture of a black woman farmer or a destitute farmer on the cover of the product so buy the product not because it is Fairtrade certify but because you feel like doing some charity. Should it be straight forward? Should they not do all the business in Fairtrade manner? Why not they store every product that is Fairtrade certified? Answer is simple. They do not want to do this. It is all show off. What they are interested in is the profit wherever it comes from.

Fairtrade is people promoted program and this was not promoted by the supermarkets. Realizing that customers know what they are doing with the producers in the developing countries they want to cover it up with a few Fairtrade products. They would be selling less than 10% products (by revenue) that would be Fairtrade certified but whole store would remind you of this.

This all seems a hypocrisy to me. If they stop paying huge bonuses to the top management then all the farmers would have better life. For example in a time of recession new chief executive of M&S,Mr Bolland, would get around £15 million in his first year. Is this quality worth every penny? I think no.