photo by Susan Kambalu (skambalu on Flickr CC)

In Germany, fair trade cafés and fair trade boutiques, known as ‘world shops’ are growing in popularity. There are over 30 world shops in the Berlin-Brandenburg area alone.

Fair trade doesn’t just mean coffee or chocolate. There are around 1,000 fair trade products available in the country.

Germany’s ‘Fair Trade Week’ highlights the benefits of socially responsible goods, including better wages for producers in poor countries, which in turn means that consumers and businesses must be willing to pay higher prices. FA!R 2010 (September 23-25), a fair trade expo, took place in Dortmund during Fair Trade Week and included some 80 exhibitions.

However, a recent survey of consumers in Germany, France, the UK and Spain by food and grocery analyst IGD, showed that German consumers lagged significantly behind those in France in and the UK. Only 10% of Germans surveyed plan to buy fair trade goods in the future, as opposed to 24% in France and 31% in the UK.

See more results from the survey in the Farmers Guardian.

For more on fair trade in Germany, check out the following video report from Deutsche Welle:

Additional resources:

Fair World Project

World Fair Trade Organization