Tate & Lyle's switch to Fairtrade only covers its supermarket lines. It's a PR ploy that leaves in its shadow more genuine fair trade stories

Excuse me for sounding ever so slightly cynical about Tate & Lyle's conversion to Fairtrade. I'd be more impressed if the company was converting all its business, not just the retail side. Putting highly visible bags of Fairtrade sugar on supermarket shelves is a creative way to pull off an ethical rebranding in the consumer's mind, but what about the other 80% of the sugar that it sells to manufacturers? Tate & Lyle is non-committal, stating "long-term ambitions". But corporate enthusiasm may be less here because this would require a massive structural adjustment in business practice and deliver only a weaker second wave of feelgood headlines.

Tate & Lyle is doubtless playing catch up with British Sugar, which has likewise made capital out its retail fair trade range from Malawi. Giant refiners such as these competing for the 'most ethical' crown may sound like good news for impoverished sugar producers, until you remember that these two operate a duopoly in the UK sugar market. Most consumers don't realise British Sugar is rapidly cornering the retail market through acquisitions such as Billingtons, so adding more desirable cane sugar to its beet sugar Silver Spoon brand. What space does this leave for smaller companies in a market stitched up by giants ?

Ironically, by far the most exciting sugar to break into the UK market in living memory, Plantation Reserve, is neither refined by a mega-corporation nor Fairtrade. On the taste and aroma front, this gloriously butterscotchy Barbadian sugar knocks spots off any other cane sugar you can buy, fair trade or otherwise. Its tentative foothold on our shelves is testament to the resilience of a little island that is fighting to save its sugar industry. Growers on Barbados supplying Plantation Reserve are paid vastly more for their sugar than any Fairtrade equivalent, all workers are unionised, have access to a national health service and free schooling to secondary level. 

Yet because it was not deemed poor enough by some arcane UN yardstick, Barbados was not placed on the list of Fairtrade countries until last month, and even now, there is no guarantee Plantation Reserve will get Fairtrade status. This could make retailers less likely to stock it, and manufacturers more reluctant to use it, despite its superior taste and growing, dedicated consumer following. It's time we learned to distinguish top-to-toe ethical products, like Plantation Reserve, from the ethical posturings of self-serving corporations.n

Joanna Blythman is the author of Bad Food Britain