More Camino foods graduating to Small Producer Symbol (SPP) fair trade certification

Thanks to smart and demanding Canadian consumers, the fair trade standards we and others codified two decades ago are (finally!) being more widely adopted by large multi-national agribusinesses. We at La Siembra and our sisters at Equal Exchange will use this opportunity to raise the bar by promoting the founding principles of fair trade and more use of the Small Producer Symbol (SPP) certification, and by trading exclusively with democratically organized small-scale farmers.

During the first half of 2016, La Siembra introduced the SPP fair trade certification on ten new Camino organic foods. The muscovado brown sugar and the full line of Camino coffees are produced and purchased under the more-stringent SPP standards established by the Foundation for Organized Small-Scale Producers (FUNDEPPO  www.spp.coop).

As worker-owners of Canada’s leading co-operative dedicated to fair trade, La Siembra is proud to join Santropol in Québec, Just Us! in Nova Scotia, Ethiquable in France, and Equal Exchange in the USA in adopting SPP standards for coffee and sugar.

Graduating to the SPP standards continues La Siembra’s pioneering role in developing the fair trade movement. Prior to La Siembra’s establishment, there were no standards for fair trade hot chocolate, sugar, or cocoa in the Canadian market. La Siembra helped the organizations that later became the Fairtrade Labelling Organization (FLO www.fairtrade.net) to establish those standards while creating a market for co-operatives of marginalized producer organizations. Now that many of those farmer co-operatives are leaders in the global movement for fair and sustainable trade practices, they formed FUNDEPPO.

Camino will continue to use the better-known and more open fair trade standards maintained by the FLO while graduating to the SPP standards as we strengthen those supply chains.