Assessing Fairtrade Marketing Drivers and Market Prospects for Commodity Producers in Developing Countries

Fred Yamoah, Andrew Fearne, Rachel Duffy, and Dan Petrovici, ‘Assessing Fairtrade Marketing Drivers and Market Prospects for Commodity Producers in Developing Countries’, paper presented at the 14th IAABD Annual Conference, Integrating African Markets and Economies in a Changing Global Economy: Issues, Challenges and Opportunities, 14 May 2013 – 19 May 2013, Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, Accra, GhanaFairtrade has received considerable research attention but little is known about marketing factors driving sales and its potential implications for sustained market access for commodity producers. To provide objective insights the paper draws on the analysis of supermarket data to establish the relationships between sales and marketing factors such as price, distribution and promotion. The paper demonstrates that increasing fairtrade retail sales growth is attributable to widened distribution and prevalent price increases. Thus, fairtrade commodity producers may not be guaranteed a ready market access in the UK in the medium to long term if the mainstreaming strategy is not reconsidere