Why is Fair Trade so expensive?

11/07/2008

I appreciate that sometimes the "little man" at the source of our supply chain is often inadequately paid and therefore I am basically in agreement with the idea of goods being "Fairly Traded".  However, I think that it is important that the transaction is fair to me as well.
 
I wanted to buy some brazil nuts. I regularly buy them and usually in fairly large packs so I know what to expect in the way of pricing, but I couldn't get to the usual shop and looked on the supermarket shelf - Fair Trade brazil nuts £1.89 for 150g and further along the shelf  - presumably "unfairly" traded - brazils at £1.49 for 200g: a difference of nearly 60%.  

 

I can not believe that the original supplier gets a further 60%, so you can guess which ones I went for: and the price is still high.
 
This appears to be just another little "con" to extract money, often from those who can ill afford it.
 
Caveat emptor!
 
Paul Foss, Bristol