Cadbury and the Fairtrade Foundation today announced plans to achieve Fairtrade certification for Cadbury Dairy Milk, the nation’s top selling chocolate bar, by end of Summer 2009. This groundbreaking move will result in the tripling of sales of cocoa under Fairtrade terms for cocoa farmers in Ghana, both increasing Fairtrade cocoa sales for existing certified farming groups, as well as opening up new opportunities for thousands more farmers to benefit from the Fairtrade system.

Cadbury will also be sourcing cocoa from Kuapa Kokoo, one of the first groups to be Fairtrade certified, with over 40,000 registered cocoa farmers across Ghana. Although they are currently only selling a small percentage of their cocoa as Fairtrade, they have been able to implement community projects like building primary school classrooms, constructing wells, and investing in corn mills. Now Kuapa Kokoo will have the opportunity to sell cocoa to Cadbury on Fairtrade terms, which will increase their Fairtrade premiums, and therefore the range of farmer support and community development programmes they can implement