Ben and Jerry’s Goes Bananas

19 May 2008

With the summer months making their comeback, returning in a blaze glorious sunshine, everyone can start thinking about slapping on the sun cream, jostling for prime bathing positions on city parks, kicking back and chilling right out. However, when you can’t stand the heat anymore there maybe only one answer, the great cooling guilty pleasure: Ice cream.

Ben and Jerry’s have, once again, come to the rescue of all those sweltering in the heat, with a new product that has the company’s traditional chunk factor, but also comes with a reduced guilt factor that’s worth shouting about. Chunky Monkey is a well established Ben and Jerry’s flavour that blends banana, chunky pieces of chocolate and walnut in a lush, creamy, mellow mix. But, although the flavour is not new, the fact that it carries the Fairtrade mark is.

Chunky Monkey is the third of Ben and Jerry’s flavours to become a Fairtrade product, following on from their Vanilla flavour which went Fairtrade in summer 2006 followed shortly after by their Toffee Crunch. Now Chunky Monkey is to be made with sugar, bananas and cocoa, all guaranteed to be traded in accordance with international Fairtrade standards.

Fairtrade is a strategy committed to the alleviation of poverty and to sustainable development for disadvantaged farmers and workers in the developing world. As Ben and Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield has said ‘nobody wants to buy something that was made by exploiting somebody else.’

Ben and Jerry’s have teamed up with the El Guabo banana producers association in Ecador, a cooperative of 350 small-scale producers that employ over 2000 workers. El Guabo treasurer, Jovanny Coronel said “Fairtrade has improved our members and farm workers’ standard of living. We now have the resources to help the community and conserve the environment.â€?

www.benjerry.co.uk
www.fairtrade.org.uk

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