• Intellectual property rights

Intellectual property rights

Based on data from national and international Fair Trade organisation in 25 European countries this report gives an overview of trends and figures of the Fair Trade market in Europe. It highlights the success and shows how Fair Trade has expanded into mainstream distribution channels and is being recognised as an efficient tool for poverty eradication and sustainable development.

Key findings include:

• Net retail value of Fair trade products sold in Europe now exceeds 660m EUR
• the most significant part of the overall increase of Fair Trade sales has been achieved with labelled products, particularly with coffee and bananas
• many new companies have entered the market in the last five years and most older players have seen their turnover increase substantially over the same period
• Fair Trade products can be bought in about 55,000 supermarkets all over Europe.

The report also identifies a number of challenges for different stakeholders in the Fair Trade movement:

• with more of the big players and multinationals showing an interest in Fair Trade labelling, it will be crucial for labelling organisations to find innovative ways to cooperate with them, yet still remain critical where necessary
• importing organisations who often find themselves between competing demands from producers on the one hand and consumers on the other, need to build greater brand and company loyalty in the face of increasing competition; they also need to identify new sources of growth outside of the supermarkets.

• Full text of document
• Publisher details
• Send to a friend