• Fair-trade foodstuffs comprise 93% of 35 million euros consumed in 2015
• 20% of Spaniards bought fair-trade last year, but avg spent just 75 cents each
The number of people consuming fair-trade products in Spain in 2015 grew by 6 percent year-on-year, with total consumption of fair-trade products last year totaling 35 million euros, according to a new report from the Coordinadora Estatal de Comercio Justo (CECJ), Spain’s national coordinating council of fair-trade retailers. The vast majority of fair-trade items consumed in Spain continue to be foodstuffs, accounting for 93 percent of all sales, with fair-trade coffee accounting for 45 percent of the total alone.
Despite the increase, Spaniards rank near the bottom of the table of Europeans who buy and consume fair-trade, with just 20 percent of the population buying fair-trade items. Only three countries in Europe spent less than Spain on fair-trade products, with Spaniards consuming just 75 cents each of fair-trade products each per year. That figure places Spain way below the Europe-wide average of 12.4 euros per person spent on fair-trade goods in 2015.
Spain’s public sector lags even further behind the rest of Europe, with government agency purchases of fair-trade goods accounting for less than 1 percent of total 35 million euros in fair-trade purchases in 2015. In issuing the report, CECJ President Mercedes García de Vinuesa said even a slight growth in public sector purchases of fair-trade goods in Spain could significantly increase the overall total of purchases and move Spain up the European fair-trade rankings in 2016.
► Read More in Spanish at Europa Press, El Mundo and La Información …
