Selling Fairtrade Products in the Office Cafe

Report on Fairtrade Products Sales

Organizer: T&L People First office

Overview of the Program and Intention

Every Wednesday in October <48 participants >

Fairtrade is a global movement to change the way trade works through trading crops and products from emerging markets with a fair price in a continuous manner. With the support of a fairtrade organization, Wakachiai Project, who Deloitte Tohmatsu Group has been working with over the years, 10 different food products and daily commodities from India, Nicaragua, Palestine, and other countries around the world were put on display for sale.

Leveraging the scheme of Impact Month, the program was designed to encourage everybody to take part in solving the problem of poverty as fairtrade is yet to be a common practice in Japan with very limited access to such products.

We decided that collaboration with the office cafe and offering a fairtrade shop as part of Impact Month would make it easy for everyone to participate.

Results and Going Forward

A total of 48 members from six businesses worked as volunteers, supporting the program in many different ways, from wrapping products and making item descriptions to attending customers who visited the shop.

Some members bought products not only for themselves but as gifts to share with their team members, family, and friends. We are excited that, thanks to the people who made purchases, fairtrade products can reach an even wider group of people, both inside and out of the Deloitte Tohmatsu Group.

Participants’ Comments

• We volunteers talked about “becoming rich in our heart” through the activity. My very first time as a volunteer turned into a very fulfilling experience.
• Many more people from different businesses than I expected worked as volunteers and I enjoyed talking to them.
• High marks on the accessibility of the program - it was held in the headquarter building and was set up so that participation could even be done in one hour shifts.