The overall volume of tea being traded under the fair trade banner was very small, and not large enough to have any serious impact. Fair trade, we discovered, was as susceptible to market forces as mainstream trade, and paying a premium price over existing market prices when the market prices themselves were crashing through the floor was not enough.

It really struck home when, in the UK in 1994 to do a study of poverty in Britain, Mari and Stan, founders of ACCORD and JUST CHANGE. They were appalled to find people on housing estates in Easterhouse, Glasgow, drinking loads of tea but not being able to afford Fair trade tea because it was more expensive. And in 1997, a group of adivasis who visited Germany were equally horrified to find German friends paying "more" for our tea. "They're our friends - they should pay less not more," protested Bomman, one of the adivasi group. This made us think. The "fair" was based on charity from decent westerners, but it did not challenge the power relationships between labour and capital.

So here were communities right across the market spectrum, "rich" and "poor", in both India and in Britain, who are subjected to forces outside their control. We asked: "Why not link these groups?" And so Just Change was born as a different way to trade between communities. Working with John Fishwick in the UK, who did a year’s sabbatical at ACCORD, we did a number of pilots and set up the mechanisms to reach, tea bag and distribute the tea in the UK. Just Change takes Fair Trade one step further to provide alternative trading structures and mechanisms. It seeks to change the power relationship between labour and capital. In doing so it attempts to eradicate, not just alleviate poverty. We like to think of it as  Fair Trade Plus !