Fair Trade USA, the leading third-party certifier of Fair Trade products in the United States, on January 18 unveiled a newly redesigned certification label and significant revisions to its Multiple Ingredients Product Policy. The updated label, a significant deviation from the original black-and-white Fair Trade Certified label, can be used in any country in the world.  It was also designed to visually highlight the important benefits of Fair Trade. The Fair Trade Certified label is now found on more than 10,000 products throughout the United States.

Under the revised Ingredients Policy, which applies to all food and personal care products, only products that contain 100 percent Fair Trade Certified ingredients may bear the full Fair Trade Certified label. Products containing at least 20 percent Fair Trade Certified ingredients will now bear a new Fair Trade Certified Ingredients label.

To use the ingredients label:

a) 100 percent of the ingredient commonly associated with a product must be Fair Trade Certified.  For example, a chocolate bar must contain 100 percent Fair Trade Certified cocoa.

b) For any individual Fair Trade Certified ingredient used in the product, 100 percent of that ingredient must be certified.  For example, if a product contains Fair Trade Certified vanilla extract, all of the vanilla extract in the product must be Fair Trade Certified.

c) The product must contain at least 20 percent Fair Trade Certified content in total, and all ingredients that can be Fair Trade Certified must be Fair Trade Certified, if the ingredient is commercially available.

In the case of single-ingredient products, like tea and coffee, Fair Trade USA will continue to require that 100 percent of the product be Fair Trade Certified. The policy also requires full web disclosure of all ingredients contained in a product.