This is the finding of a recent National Opinion Poll survey conducted for Traidcraft. The research revealed that although nine out of ten people said they would be happy to pay more for foodstuffs like coffee, tea and bananas if it would help people in poor countries, less than 20 per cent actually do so.

Another survey, this time conducted by the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD) has concluded that shoppers put themselves first. Price, sell-by date and taste influence purchasers in more than 70 per cent of cases.

Stories of worker-exploitation seem to have little effect on shoppers, who also seldom bother to look out and buy products with ethical logos. In fact, it seems there is a good deal of ignorance about the concept of fair trade, and a failure to understand cause and effect in globalisation.

Café Direct, one fair-trade company, believes that the consumer culture persuades people that they deserve the best for themselves and their families, which leads to shopping choices that are essentially selfish.

Another major problem that fair-trade companies face is simply in becoming more easily available. The executive director of the Fairtrade Foundation, Harriet Lamb, explains: "If you go regularly to a supermarket that doesn't have fair trade foods available, you have to go to different shops and hunt these things down. There are people who do that...but most shoppers aren't going to do that. They want to find fair-trade products on the same shelves as everything else, and that's still the biggest hurdle we've got to cross. ...People have to understand that Fairtrade offers a positive living alternative that we can all buy into, just as easily as going shopping."

Despite the difficulties, there is a great deal of progress being made. A new international mark, Fairtrade, was launched late last year and is now attached to a wide range of foodstuffs that contain fairly traded chocolate, cocoa, sugar and honey, sourced from 36 countries and representing 4.5 million growers and their families. Sales of such products topped £53 million for 2002.

The Co-operative Group made headlines recently when it switched its entire range of own-brand chocolate bars to Fairtrade in 2400 stores nationwide, having struck a deal direct with a Ghanaian cocoa co-operative, Kuapa Kokoo. The deal will guarantee a fair price for their cocoa harvest, and provide schools, wells and medical facilities. The Co-operative Group has said it hopes that its decision will "start a race among major supermarket groups anxious to demonstrate they care, and keen to establish their ethical credentials."