Sainsbury's targets Fairtrade growth

Sainsbury's has vowed to almost double its sales of Fairtrade goods over the next four years, starting with a goal to sell a record number of bananas over Fairtrade Fortnight, which starts today.

The UK's third-largest grocer made total Fairtrade sales, across 800 products, including coffee, tea and sugar, of £276m over the year to February 2011. But it has now revealed plans to increase this to £500m by 2015, partly by increasing the amount of products on offer.

As part of this target, Sainsbury's hopes to sell 26 million Fairtrade bananas over the coming fortnight, one million more the same two-week period last year.

In addition to giving banana farmers a guaranteed minimum price for their crop, Sainsbury's said its banana partnership alone generated £4m of Fairtrade premiums, which helped people in the developing world.