Fair Trade USA Updates Multiple Ingredients Policy and Redesigns Label

Fair Trade USA, the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the U.S., has unveiled a newly redesigned certificate label and made significant revisions to its Multiple Ingredients Product Policy.

Under the revised Ingredients Policy, which applies to all food and personal care products, only products that contain 100% Fair Trade Certified ingredients may bear the full Fair Trade Certified label. Products containing at least 20% Fair Trade Certified ingredients will now bear a new Fair Trade Certified Ingredients label.

To use the ingredients label:

1. 100% of the ingredient commonly associated with a product must be Fair Trade Certified.  For example, a chocolate bar must contain 100% Fair Trade Certified cocoa.
2. For any individual Fair Trade Certified ingredient used in the product, 100% of that ingredient must be certified.  For example, if a product contains Fair Trade Certified vanilla extract, all of the vanilla extract in the product must be Fair Trade Certified.
3. The product must contain at least 20% Fair Trade Certified content in total, and all ingredients that can be Fair Trade Certified must be Fair Trade Certified, if the ingredient is commercially available.
4. In the case of single-ingredient products, like tea and coffee, Fair Trade USA will continue to require that 100% of the product be Fair Trade Certified.

The draft of the policy is open for public comment for the next 60 days. To view the complete outline of the policy, visit FairTradeUSA.org.

Coffee Image Source: Fair Trade Laos/Flickr