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As Nestlé goes on a Public Relations (PR) offensive trying to improve its image by linking to the Fairtrade name during International Nestlé-Free Week, it is a great opportunity to tell people why to boycott Nestlé Fairtrade KitKat, its token Fairtrade chocolate bar, involving just 2.6% of its cocoa purchase. You can download our leaflet 'Why boycott Nestlé Fairtrade KitKat' by clicking here. You can also invite your friends to the event on Facebook event - click here - and adapt our suggested message (given below) for posting as a comment on articles that highlight KitKat without mentioning other concerns.

Nestlé is 'widely boycotted' (to use the words of the company's Global Public Affairs Manager) because its baby milk marketing violates international standards, so undermining breastfeeding and endangering babies fed on formula. Nestlé is the global market leader.

Many boycott supporters do support the Fair Trade concept - a certification system requiring producers to abide by minimum standards for employment conditions, to ensure child labour is not involved in their supply chain and to pay a fair price to suppliers. 

In the UK, certification is organised by the Fairtrade Foundation, which awarded the Fairtrade mark to Nestlé' 4-finger KitKat in 2010 and 2-finger KitKat from 2013. Nestlé says it will be buying 4,500 tonnes of cocoa through the Fairtrade scheme (its annual purchase is about 365,000 tonnes). In 2005 the Fairtrade Foundation awarded the mark to Nestlé Partners' Blend coffee, which involves just 0.1% of the coffee farmers dependent on the company, while Nestlé is accused of driving down standards for the rest - click here for the controversy over Partners' Blend.

The announcement that 2-finger KitKat will have the Fairtrade mark from January 2013 came two days before International Nestlé-Free Week 2012 - the timing of the announcement was clearly an attempt to try to divert attention from the week.

We conducted a survey through our site at the time of the Partners' Blend launch and of 500 who responded, 95% were boycotting Nestlé and 92% said they bought Fairtrade products, while 45% said their support of the Fairtrade mark would change if Nestlé received it. There was widespread confusion about the meaning of the Fairtrade mark as two-thirds of respondents said if they saw the mark they believed it indicated there were no significant ethical concerns about the company. In truth, the certification process only involves checking the practices surrounding the product on which the mark appears.

It was announced 6,000 farmers would benefit from supplying cocoa to Fairtrade 4-finger KitKat, gaining about an extra £400,000 per year from the Fairtrade premium. This has risen to 7,000 farmers with the addtion of 2-finger KitKat. Nesté's is again receiving global publicity for a fraction of the price of the sums it pays on adertising (for example, it spent £43 million on the Nescafé UK advertising campaign it ran in 2010). 

My concerns about the way Nestlé exploits the Fairtrade mark are contained in the message I have posted to a few of the articles promoting Nestlé KitKat - feel free to adapt this when posting comments on articles and discussion groups (I cannot be everywhere!). I've added links to supporting documents and an interview with the International Labor Rights Fund, which has campaigned on child slavery in Nestlé's cocoa supply chain. You can download the leaflet with 10 key fact about Nestlé by clicking here.

Also check out the date of the next Nestlé demonstration if you are interested in campaigning.

What a Public Relations coup for Nestlé - whose KitKat bar you have mentioned in your article. Only 2.6% of Nestlé's cocoa purchase is involved in KitKat and it is criticised for failing to act on a 2001 undertaking to end child slavery in the supply chain of the rest by 2006. There are also concerns that Indonesian rainforest is being destroyed to provide Nestlé with palm oil - following a Greenpeace campaign last year, Nestlé said it would source sustainable palm oil, but only by 2015 (best to pay close attention as to whether this will be another broken promise made to silence campaigners).

Nestlé Fairtrade KitKat is on Baby Milk Action's list of products to boycott to put pressure on Nestlé executives to stop marketing baby milk using strategies that violate international standards. Nestlé's latest global marketing strategy is to claim its formula 'protects' babies, while in reality babies fed on formula are more likely to become sick than breastfed babies and, in conditions of poverty, more likely to die. The email Nestlé campaign has prompted some changes and admissions, but more pressure is needed as Nestlé continues to defend the colourful logos it has added to labels and most of the promotional material containing misleading claims. Nestlé also refuses to bring its warnings and instructions into line with World Health Organisation guidance on how to reconstitute powdered formula, so putting babies who have to be fed on formula at additional risks. 

Nestlé is also accused of trade union busting activities in Colombia and refusing to accept court rulings in the Philippines over workers' rights. For information on these and other issues, see the Nestlé Critics site: http://www.nestlecritics.org/

You can find evidence of what Nestlé is really doing and a leaflet explaining why to boycott Fairtrade KitKat at: http://info.babymilkaction.org/nestlefree

There are companies that are 100% Fairtrade which deserve supporting by those who back this initiative, rather than Nestlé that uses its token Fairtrade chocolate bar to divert criticism and gain undeserved publicity.

Note on calculations

Nestlé's infographic about its 2-finger KitKat joining 4-finger KitKat with the Fairtrade mark says that 9,600 tonnes will be purchased from 7,000 farmers.

Although it was reported in 2009 at the time of the 4-finger KitKat gaining the Fairtrade mark that 6,000 farmers were involved, the new infographic suggests that the number involved was actually 2,500.

According to Nestlé Creating Shared Value report 2011, it aims to buy 40,000 tonnes of cocoa in 2012 through its own cocoa plan scheme (through which Nestlé ties in suppliers through offers of better treatment) and this will represent 11% of its entire cocoa purchase. From these figures, it can be calculated that Nestlé purchases about 364,000 tonnes in total per year. A clear statement of the total purchase has not be found in the latest report (it is noted, however, that the Trading Visions site gave Nestlé's purchase in 2008 as 370,000 tonnes, so if this has actually increased, the Fairtrade percentage will be even smaller than 2.6%).