Britain's morning brew could be under threat, with the climate crisis putting the tea, coffee and chocolate we rely on every day at growing risk.
From the first cup of tea in the morning to the coffee picked up on the commute and the chocolate in the cupboard, many of Britain's everyday favourites depend on farmers thousands of miles away who are already facing drought, extreme heat and increasingly unpredictable harvests.
New research commissioned by Fairtrade shows 84% of British adults are concerned climate change will affect Britain's food supply, while 69% of 16 to 24-year-olds say extreme weather has increased their fears about the future of food.
And the people growing these crops are often the least able to cope with the changes.
Around 125 million people depend on coffee farming for their livelihoods, yet many survive on just £1 to £2 a day. In Britain, a customer can pay around £3.70 for a single cup of coffee, while the farmer who grew the beans typically receives just 4p – around 1% of the retail price.
That matters for British shoppers because farmers who cannot earn enough to live on have little money to invest in protecting their crops against a changing climate. Without the ability to invest in shade trees, irrigation, healthier soil or different crops, future harvests become even more vulnerable.
The same problem is playing out behind Britain's chocolate and tea habits.
Cocoa farmers receive an average of just 6% of the final value of a chocolate bar, with some earning less than £1 a day. Growers in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire typically receive around a third of what they need for a living income.
And for Britain's tea drinkers, the warning is equally stark. Only one in five tea growers surveyed in Kenya said they earned enough to provide their families with basic essentials, while more than 70% said wages and income were their biggest challenge.
Fairtrade says this creates a vicious cycle: climate change makes farming harder, but farmers earning poverty wages cannot afford to adapt to it.

