When we talk about sugar, we always think of something sweet, a slice of cake or a delicious dish. However, not everyone knows that behind such sweetness there is a market which is sometimes unfair, a very hard and unpaid harvesting and production labour, an environment that is exploited without respecting its biodiversity. Much of the sugar we use every day comes from places where people and the environment are not protected.
But there is also an alternative in which sugar becomes instead a symbol of hope and empowerment, managing to express all its real “sweetness”: it is the sugar that comes from fair trade.
Altromercato has been importing organic cane sugar from the Southern Countries of the World since the mid-1990s, building supply chains that respect the principles and criteria of fair trade and that have allowed farmers to build their own sugar factories, to become independent from landowners and to support the social development of the communities in which they live. This is the story, for example, of Dulcita, the organic whole sugar from Copropap organization, founded in Ecuador in 1991 by some families that have been growing sugar cane for generations.
Thanks to the support of international cooperation and Altromercato projects, together with the farmers’ desire for empowerment, Copropap cooperative is now building its own sugar refinery, a symbol of independence and freedom.
Philippines, Paraguay, Colombia and Mauritius are just some of the countries where Altromercato collaborates with cooperatives and organizations of small organic sugar cane growers. All of them operate in respect of the environment and workers and, step by step, have managed to conquer their own freedom and emancipation.
Altromercato sugar comes from direct supply chains with high added value for growers and with the guarantee of quality for consumers, thanks to its thirty years of experience in this field.
For this reason, many stakeholders in the Italian food industry have found a reliable partner in Altromercato for the purchase of raw materials in the development of CSR projects.
