Petitions representing 300,000 people has been handed to Nestlé protesting its decision to end sourcing cocoa and sugar on Fairtrade terms.

In particular, the KitKat bar has been something of a flagship Fairtrade product for over a decade, and the partnership has resulted in significant impact for tens of thousands of small-scale farmers in Cote d’Ivoire. As a result of the withdrawal tens of thousands of extremely vulnerable cocoa farmers will no longer receive around £1.37m of Fairtrade Premium payments every year.

The largest petition was started by Joanna Pollard, coordinator of Fairtrade Yorkshire and has been signed by an incredible 284,000 people.

Pollard said: “Since launching this petition, I’ve had the chance to speak directly to farmers and have also managed to speak privately with Nestle representatives about how farmers are going to lose out from this decision. They haven’t listened, and that’s why I’m here today, to tell the company that we are going to keep standing with farmers and call on everyone to choose chocolate with the Fairtrade Mark.”

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