News: Sugar refiner switching to ethical label product from Belize

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Tuesday, September 07, 2010

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Sugar refiner switching to ethical label product from Belize

LONDON, England (Reuters): Sugar refiner and sweetener maker Tate & Lyle said on Saturday it has begun to switch its retail sugar range to the ethical Fairtrade label, with the first products sourced from former British colony Belize.

Tate & Lyle will add 60 million pounds ($117.9 million) to the value of Fairtrade sugars in the first year alone, a category which last year was valued at just four million pounds.

"We are only at the beginning of the journey but are ambitious to have all our retail cane sugar range bearing the Fairtrade mark by the end of 2009," Steven Hermiston, retail sales and marketing director of Tate and Lyle Sugars, said in a statement.

The Fairtrade Foundation provides a consumer label to guarantee that disadvantaged farmers in the developing world get a better deal.

Retail sales of Fairtrade certified products topped 290 million pounds ($569.7 million) in 2006 and have grown 40 percent year-on-year over the past five years.

Tate & Lyle said it will be buying between 50,000 and 100,000 tonnes of sugar from Belize in the first year and paying a premium of $60 a tonne.

The company has been buying sugar from the central American country for more than 35 years.

"Fairtrade can help us build schools, health centres, clinics and much more," Giovanni Loria, chairman of Corozal Belize Sugar Cane Farmers Association, said.

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