CONTACT:
YOUR NAME, CELL PHONE #
Jamie Guzzi, 415-505-7427

MEDIA ADVISORY

Make My Wonka Bar Fair Trade!

Fair Trade Activists in YOUR CITY promote Fair Trade chocolate at opening night of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

WHEN: DATE AND TIME OF YOUR ACTION

WHERE: LOCATION OF YOUR ACTION (NAME OF MOVIE THEATER, STREET ADDRESS)

VISUALS: NOTE HERE IF YOU WILL BE DRESSED UP AS CHARACTERS FROM THE FILM OR HAVE INTERESTING SIGNS (For example, Oompa Loompas handing out Fair Trade flyers and holding signs that say XXX)

WHAT: Fair Trade Chocolate advocates will be outside screenings of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in YOUR CITY and 20 other cities on Friday night, handing out flyers and arguing that Willy Wonka and Charlie would have wanted their Wonka Bars to be Fair Trade certified.

The Fair Trade advocates will be trying to bring attention to the real life problems facing the chocolate industry, which continues to use illegal child labor on cocoa farms in the Ivory Coast and failed on July 1 to meet a self-imposed deadline for eradicating illegal child labor from its cocoa production.

A peak behind the sourcing practices of companies like Mars, Hershey and Nestle -- maker of the Wonka Whipple Scrumptious Fudgemallow Delight -- reveals not a magical candy forest, but a real human tragedy as children as young as nine continue to toil under unimaginable conditions on West African cocoa farms.

The actions outside "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" screenings are sponsored by Global Exchange, International Labor Rights Fund, United Students for Fair Trade, and the Canadian Fair Trade Network, among others. These groups want chocolate consumers, who spend $13 billion annually on cocoa products, to know that there is an alternative to chocolate that is made using illegal child labor -- Fair Trade. Fair Trade chocolate is certified by an international monitoring group to meet certain labor, wage, and environmental standards.

Since TransFair USA began certifying Fair Trade chocolate and cocoa in September 2002, 28 companies and importers have been licensed to offer Fair Trade Certified semi-finished and branded chocolate products. From 2003 to 2004, sales grew 78 percent; and Fair Trade Certified hot cocoa and chocolate bars are now offered in more than 1600 retail locations around the US, including several Safeway, Tully's, and Whole Foods stores.

For more information, see http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/cocoa/index.html