The founder of Origin Wine says if he's learned one thing it's that Fair trade is right for business

Bernard Fontannaz, the Swiss founder of Origin Wine (a wine supply-chain service) and CEO of Fairhills (a Fairtrade wine project), has worked in the trade since he was a boy. He describes it as a passion that's in his blood. Fontannaz left the Alps for New Zealand in 1987, before settling in South Africa and founding Origin Wine in 2002.

The challenges have been unusual: "Working with wine is the same anywhere in the world, you're working with a natural product and depend on the will of mother nature. In South Africa, we never know what to expect. The currency is volatile, and we work in a divided society." But he describes the business as being well placed in the market—"it's up to us to make it work".

If there's one thing he's learned, it's that Fairtrade, the system where local producers and farmers in the developing world get a better deal and a fair price, "is the only way to do business". Fontannaz says: "We're living in a third-world country that has a lot of problems and deep social issues. The onus is on everyone to try and rectify it. If you want a thriving, flourishing society in the future you've got to work with it in the present. One way of doing that is through Fairtrade."

His Fairhills project is the biggest Fairtrade wine project in the world and involves 22 farms and 750 workers in the Du Toitskloof Winery. He says the best result is not the bottom line but "seeing these people and their achievement".

"In a small way we're changing lives and making them better. If you want to look back and say, 'I made a difference', then you should give back. I'm contributing to an ethos."