Would you buy fair-trade Huel?

It would be interesting to know if there are many users here who would prefer to buy fair-trade Huel. For anyone who has not heard of fair-trade;

When you buy products with the FAIRTRADE Mark, you support farmers and
workers as they work to improve their lives and their communities. The
Mark means that the Fairtrade ingredients in the product have been
produced by small-scale farmer organisations or plantations that meet
Fairtrade social, economic and environmental standards.
The standards include protection of workersā€™ rights and the
environment, payment of the Fairtrade Minimum Price and an additional
Fairtrade Premium to invest in business or community projects.

You can read more about it here, but the basic concept is that the farmers of the food get a wage they can live on and safe working conditions.

Fair-trade Huel might be more expensive because;
1. Suppliers who are fair-trade certified have to pay workers a fair wage.
2. Suppliers who are fair-trade certified have to spend money making sure the workers are safe and working conditions are adequate.
3. Monitoring this system to make sure everyone follows the rules is complicated and expensive in itself.

Personally I would defiantly be willing to pay more for a version of Huel where some or all of the ingredients had fair-trade certification. Other certifications that served a similar purpose would also be fine.

Would anyone else pay more for fair-trade Huel?

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Being somewhat sceptical of ā€˜Fair Tradeā€™, Iā€™d have to think twice about that, especially if the price went up. Call me a cynic, but is the whole fair trade concept not just a clever marketing technique employed by multi nationals to ease the conscious of the ignorant consuming masses so that they buy buy buy? I know the original idea might have been well intentioned, but how many of the farmers and others it is designed to help, realise the full benefits?

Iā€™d seriously consider it. Iā€™d also be quite keen on ecological ingrediets. Itā€™d depend on the final price, of course, but we buy the majority of our households products with fairtrade and/or ecological certification already.

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Me personally, no. If the price was the same, then sure, can only be a good thing, but the way I view Huel, is itā€™s the quickest, easiest solution to a complete diet, without being too expensive. Iā€™m not a foodie, or a vegan, or an eco warrior or anything of the sort. Donā€™t get me wrong, Iā€™m also not the kind of guy to go around in a 4x4 to go 10 minutes walk down the shop, or throw anything away willy nilly, but Iā€™d be against paying more money just to improve a guys life who Iā€™ve never met, nor will I meet, and whos quality of life doesnt impact me at all.

Now I get that makes me seem a little harsh, but itā€™s the truth. Food / Huel to me is a means to an end, a fuel for me to consume, how it gets to me is not my concern. Ofc if 2 products are the same, but 1 is fair trade and the other isnā€™t, yet they are the same price, Iā€™ll go fair trade any time.

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Forgive me but can you clarify ā€œhow many of the farmers and others it is designed to help, realise the full benefits?ā€.

Fair trade has very comprehensive standards, I canā€™t tell from your phrasing if you think these standards are insufficient to improve labourers welfare or that the standards are not properly enforced?

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*Forgive me but can you clarify ā€œhow many of the farmers and others it is designed to help, realise the full benefits?ā€. *

Erm, I donā€™t think it can get any simpler than what Iā€™ve already written.

Fair trade has very comprehensive standards, I canā€™t tell from your phrasing if you think these standards are insufficient to improve labourers welfare or that the standards are not properly enforced?

You canā€™t tell from my phrasing because I havenā€™t intimated whether I think theyā€™re sufficient or not. I will now clarify. Iā€™m not the slightest bit interested in fair trade or similar political agendas, whether itā€™s hijacked by businesses to make more money or not. I simply donā€™t care. I buy Huel for practical reasons, but the main reason, however, is that it is convenient for me and my circumstances. I become very disinterested when weā€™re preached to. If the price is increased due to the sourcing of fair trade ingredients, I will probably stop using Huel and save money.

I would be interested. I donā€™t have any illusions that fair trade meets itā€™s own standards, but Iā€™d pay more if that meant we would increase the chances of the ā€˜true costā€™ of huel to be reflected in its price. By ā€˜true costā€™ I mean full environmental and social sustainability. I currently buy cocoa powder, coffee, sugar etc. from ā€˜solidarity tradeā€™ (cooperatives of workers) because these products have been linked to children manipulation. I know some people may not afford to do this, but I can and itā€™s a no brainer.

The ā€œIā€™m all here for my self interestā€ opinions may sound cynical to some ears but in the end I know that we donā€™t disagree in the slightest. Itā€™s only the fact that I cannot fully separate my own self interest with that of the others. I donā€™t view it as ā€œsaving the worldā€ and stuff. Itā€™s just natural. Everything is interlinked whether we like it or not.

Cheers.

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Iā€™d like to think i would support a higher-cost, fairtrade Huel. In reality I am very price-sensitive, so anything but a modest increase in cost would have me either cutting down or cancelling my order. Plus, how would you chose to prioritise fairtrade over other upgrades such as going organic? Or going both fairtrade and organic? Personally, i feel that Huel occupies a gap in the market and changing the dynamics from itā€™s current setup would begin to shift the balance away from that gap - the very thing which has made it a success.

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Well fairtrade and organic address quite different concerns. Fairtrade is about trying to reduce the rate at which humans are mistreated in our supply chains. Organic is about reducing or eliminating the use of various pesticides for both environmental and health reasons.

Also, there actually already is an organic *lent in europe, see Bertrand.

I certainly would be happy to spend a little more on a product that was Fair Trade certified.

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No.

123456

I wouldnā€™t mind adding a donation to my next order for the Huel staff to help ease the living conditions of struggling farmers. I trust them more than a label found in a supermarket.

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This is closer to the approach taken by ecco and fairphone.

I agree that its a pretty cool idea, but it would be a lot more work because supply chains are notoriously opaque. Huel probably donā€™t buy directly from the people who farm their product, they may well buy from a middle-man. If this is the case, they would have to work out were the product was grown before they would know anything about the farming conditions.

Actually, I would be really interested to hear from @Julian or @TimOfficeHuel if this is the case? Do you know were ingredients for Huel are farmed?

Fair Trade is an interesting one and having not researched the effectiveness of its implementation it would be hard to make a judgement. At Huel we consider ethics and transparency (for the customer) the most important aspects when we make decisions. The welfare of all our suppliers and employees is so important to us. We do know the locations of where the ingredients are farmed but I couldnā€™t comment on whether it is fairly traded, simply because we havenā€™t been there. It would be very difficult to assess this without a legitimate certification or meeting the farmers directly, which isnā€™t feasible at the moment.

Becoming Fair Trade would undoubtedly make Huel more expensive, like becoming gluten free, certified by Informed Sport or Organic all these things are great, but our mission is to create universally affordable food so we have to weigh up these pros and cons.

For now we will focus on dealing with reputable suppliers and when we expand further start looking into other certifications.

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Personally wouldnā€™t opt for fairtrade. However, if there was an Organic option Iā€™d definitely pay the extra.

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Well there is Bertrand, but its got quite different macros and stuff.

Iā€™m always a little skeptical of Fair Trade. Typically a Fair Trade product will cost something like 30-50p more than a non-fair trade equivalent, and the upshot is each one sold will grant less than 1p more to the farmers in sales. Iā€™m all in favour of improving conditions for farmers but less so for lining the pockets of opportunistic capitalists. Teaming up with a well-vetted food security charity would seem to make a lot more sense.

Edit: Whoops! Sorry for the thread necro. The title is literally right out of a horror movie!