28 November 2008
Dubble Fairtrade Chocolate appear on BBC1's Election Programme
Angelica Bell and the kids from the BBC show Election
The team from Dubble – the sister brand of Fairtrade leader Divine Chocolate – are the expert judges featured on tonight’s episode of the ‘Election’ programme, where two teams of young people are asked to create a new brand of Fairtrade chocolate and an advertising campaign to go with it. The programme went out at 16.35 on BBC ONE and you can play it again here.
Dubble, the first and only Fairtrade chocolate bar created exclusively for young people, was launched by Divine Chocolate (the Fairtrade company that is also co-owned by cocoa farmers) and Comic Relief, as a result of the original Fairtrade chocolate brand design competition announced by Jennifer Saunders on the leading kid’s TV show Live and Kicking back in 2000.
The Dubble team – Kika Williamson and Sara Barron, with their colleague Jonathan Smith of Comic Relief – were invited to advise on the programme, set the brief, and sit on the judging panel. They also set up a live link with children of cocoa farmers in Ghana so they could tell their UK contemporaries what Fairtrade means to them. Kika Williamson – now Special Projects Manager at Divine Chocolate – developed Dubble from the start. “Establishing a Fairtrade chocolate brand for young people was an absolutely enormous challenge. It’s a very competitive market out there and it needs all your creative energies as well as the passion and persistence not to take no for an answer. Setting up Dubble we had some wonderful things on our side – firstly, a great story – a cooperative of 45000 cocoa farmers who are not only getting a fair deal for their cocoa through Fairtrade, but they co-own the company and share the profits too – and secondly the most amazing goodwill, energy and support from all sorts of people who helped make it happen.”
“For these kids, grappling with this challenge on the programme, we were looking for evidence that they had thought about the market, and how to communicate the appeal of a bar that delivers not only delicious chocolate, but also really important benefits to others as well. It’s a great brief and they tackled it brilliantly!”
The ‘Election’ series, presented by Angellica Bell, and presided over by Jonathan Dimbleby, aims to find a young person with true leadership skills among the kids of the UK. Two selected teams of young people have been competing on tasks which focus on key leadership skills like negotiating and campaigning. The seventh episode focuses on Campaigning and features Ken Livingstone describing his campaign to get people to use less water flushing toilets, followed by a task where the kids have to create their own new Fairtrade chocolate brands, and the campaigns to promote them.
The format of the programme – which works a little like The Apprentice – has a team that wins each week, and individuals who leave the teams each week. Each week Jonathan Dimbleby announces the catchphrase “Your campaign is over!”. The winning contestant, will be selected for their leadership and communication skills and will meet the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, in the final episode. Tune in to find out whose campaign is over this week!
Ends
For further information please contact Charlotte Borger on 020 7378 6550
Editors notes:
• To find out more about Dubble, visit www.dubble.co.uk. Sign up as a Dubble Agent and join the nationwide MISSION:POSSIBLE campaign to encourage more local shops to stock more Fairtrade products.
• For multi media Fairtrade educational resources visit www.papapaa.org
• Dubble is still the only Fairtrade chocolate created specifically for the youth market and is made with cocoa bought on Fairtrade terms from a farmers’ co-operative in Ghana. The Kuapa Kokoo co-operative also supplies the chocolate for Divine Chocolate Ltd., Dubble’s parent company. Divine and Dubble’s ethical credentials go one step further because Kuapa Kokoo actually owns 45% of the company so each of the 45,000 farmers get a share in the company profits. The Dubble range includes a crunchy milk chocolate 40g bar made with caramelised crisped rice, a Dubble Easter Egg and Dubble Mini Speckled Eggs. Dubble is available from all the major supermarkets, Oxfam stores nationwide and www.ethicalsuperstore.com. Divine Chocolate Ltd. is also owned by Twin Trading and The Body Shop International, and is supported by Christian Aid and Comic Relief.
• For more information about Comic Relief please visit www.comicrelief.com
• All Dubble and Divine products carry the Fairtrade Mark. This is an independent guarantee from the Fairtrade Foundation that the ingredients are sourced under internationally agreed fair trade terms and conditions. These include a guaranteed, secure price above the world market price for cocoa, an extra social premium payment, long term trading contracts, decent health and safety conditions and a commitment to support for community programmes aimed at empowering farmers to increase their abilities to be self sufficient.
• The UK chocolate market alone is worth approximately £3.4 billion a year: if Fairtrade products can capture even a small proportion of that market, producers in developing countries gain real benefits.