OK, I missed that one, but it is also slightly strange, right? Since neither Lipton nor Twinings use the Fairtrade mark, why do they have it? Who else do they supply?
Still, I have to accept that Fairtrade International didn’t reply “no, that isn’t one of ours” when asked for comment.
The article repeatedly lumps Rainforest Alliance and Fair Trade together, but they are not the same at all, and I didn’t see any examples of inspection failures for Fair Trade.
To be certified for Fair Trade, the producers must be a cooperative. That is relatively easy to check and it means that there is no-one to impose harsh conditions on the workers.
In the medieval period, there was the common idea that if something is too perfect, it must have been made by the Devil. To forestall accusations of having done a deal with the Devil, craftsmen would often deliberately introduce flaws in their design.
That’s why there are always gaps in my dovetails.
Having checked, it seems that the Fairtrade standards now allow producers that are not cooperatives.