MrBeast’s confectionery brand, Feastables, moves to deliver Fairtrade cocoa sourcing
MrBeast, aka Jimmy Donaldson has a huge online following, and has moved to source his chocolate series from Fairtrade: Pic Feastables
US confectionery brand Feastables, founded by social media star Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast, has moved to ensure 100% of its cocoa is sourced from Fairtrade certified cooperatives, enhancing its sustainability practices, writes Neill Barston.
The company has continued to make headway over the past year, in recently joining Tony’s Chocolonely’s Open Chain initiative that seeks to drive industry standards for paying an above market rate to farmers in core markets in West Africa.
In addition, as previously reported, the rapidly growing business has also moved to expand into the Kosher category with its ranges, noting the significant potential within that category of confectionery.
As the fast-rising confectionery group explained, its latest Fairtrade certification ensures Feastables chocolate is produced in line with the rigorous economic, social, and environment sustainability standards that the social justice movement is known for, to help protect the livelihoods of cocoa farmers, farm workers, and their families.
Under its new commitment, the company’s key actions will include paying farmers and their families the Living Income Reference Price always because stopping child labour starts with addressing its root cause – poverty, as well as working exclusively with farms that actively implement child labor monitoring and remediation systems (CLMRS) to identify, address, and prevent child labour. The business has also pledged to work with local communities, in children’s education and their wellbeing, and ensuring farmers have access to skilled and mechanised labour to successfully operate their farms, without child labour, which still reportedly impacts some 1.5 million young people in West Africa alone.
Notably, as the company acknowledged, while the cocoa sector is still employ millions of agricultural workers on global level, many of them are earning below poverty line wages of under $2 a day, including in Ivory Coast and Ghana, which accounts for two thirds of the market supplying the confectionery industry.
Jimmy Donaldson commented: “The status-quo of the big chocolate sector means nearly half of all children living in cocoa communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire are engaged in illegal child labor. We created Feastables, and we’re going to use the incredible network of our fans, to change the way business is done in cacao-growing regions around the world. I know we can create chocolate that people can afford and that also pays farmers fairly, so kids don’t have to work.”
“Cocoa farmer livelihoods are on the line. Despite chocolate being a hundred-billion-dollar industry, most of the people growing cacao, the key ingredient in chocolate, live in poverty. Farmers, especially in West Africa, continue to be excluded from their fair share of the profits and are struggling to adapt to the devastating impacts of climate change, crop disease, ageing trees, and persistent price volatility,” said Amanda Archila, Executive Director, Fairtrade America.
She continued to say, “By partnering with Fairtrade, Feastables is leading the industry by example. Feastables is taking their commitment a step further by paying the Fairtrade Living Income Reference Price, which will help farmers invest in sustainable production and support a fair living for themselves and their families so that cocoa growing communities can thrive.”
For Feastables, the breadth and depth of Fairtrade’s impact and brand recognition throughout the global market means customers from across different regions will understand the impact of the certification. For example, globally, 71 percent of shoppers recognize the Fairtrade Mark and, critically, 86 percent trust it. Also, Fairtrade works with over two million farmers and workers in 70 countries around the world.
“It is an absolute honor for Feastables to be working with Fairtrade and for all of our chocolate packaging to include the esteemed Fairtrade certification,” says Alex Zigliara, CEO, Feastables. “Simply put – Fairtrade is the most relied upon standard and source for those looking to buy products that are ethically and sustainably sourced. We know this is meaningful for our customers and helps us to achieve our central purpose of getting children off working farms and into schools.”
