Fair Trade Fortnight

VeganLiz · Mar 18th, 2006, 12:07 AM

Amazed no-one has mentioned the fair trade fortnight that is on!!!

I went to a "fair trade and big business" talk last night (Thursday) in Brighton. It was really fascinating. There were 4 speakers. One was a lady from the fair trade foundation who discussed about how the fair trade industry is growing and expanding etc. Another was a gentleman who works for company that makes fair trade footballs. He told us about the industry and the better conditions and pay workers got. Another was a guy from a madagascan choclate company who explained about the industry there. Apparantly they make every stage of the choclate there right up to the finish product. Unfortunately they have to pay large costs to get the choclate fully made into Britain. There was also a young whippersnapper from the co-op group. As optimistic and well spoken as he was he was a bit rose tinted about the co-op group and I couldn't but help ask some cynical questions later on about chemicals in vegan/buav products they sell. (hee, hee, i like playing devils advocate : 0 )

Sadly there was no other speakers from large companies (surprise, surprise) they were probably too scared to come.

For anyone living in Brighton there is also a Fairtrade Fair and farmers market tommorrow from 11am-4pm at Friends Meeting house, Ship street, Brighton. Stalls with food, clothes and other produce....

So I wondered who here shops fairtrade and what have you found?

I went into Oxfam today. They have lots of fair trade food such as choccie, coffee, dried fruit and these lovely spicy Plaintain (banana)chips which I brought! They also sell really nice fairtrade jewellry and cards so for Mothers day I got my Mum a fairtrade necklace, fairtrade choclate covered brazil nuts and a fairtrade handcrafted card. Now I know Oxfam buy goats etc but usually I would buy from a chain store and god knows where most of my money would go....

I also tried Marks and Spencers who are meant to be selling fair trade T-shirts, jeans and underwear. The assistant went away to find out about it and just said "apparantly we have jeans and t-shirts and they are clearly labelled". It was just before they closed and she made no effort to help me find them. As the store was big I looked at numerous items then left not having found one item yet!

Apparantly Co-op sell lots of fair trade goods such as food stuffs and possibly these footballs!

I like People Tree - a fair trade and organic cotton clothing company. the clothes are more modern and less sack like than a few places although they do use some wool and shell in some items : 0 ( They had some of their items in Topshop (Oxford Street Store, London - downstairs near the vintage section) for the fairtrade fortnight. Sadly they only had been given 1 small rack but the clothes seem really nice so might get some later in the year.

My aim is to buy fair trade and organic items as much as I can now and stop (or at least seriously reduce my shopping from unethical companies - which, lets face it, is most of the high street ones)

So people what's your thoughts and experience of fair trade shopping?

Liz x

**Pob** · Mar 18th, 2006, 07:16 PM

I currently buy fairtrade (and organic) as much as I can for food, tea and coffee.

I do need to make more of an effort when buying clothes, though

Sainsbury has been pushing it somewhat in their stores - though they don't seem to have increased the nunber of fairtrade products on sale. They have put some of them on a display at the end of an aisle and there is signage in the tea/coffee aisle telling you to buy fairtrade.

**applepie** · Mar 19th, 2006, 02:02 AM

We organised a great event at uni, called "Is it a fair deal?"
People could buy dinner tickets for 5 pounds each (at the student union café), and some were served a three-course meal for the value of their 5 pounds, whereas others were served a very meagre meal which wasn't worth the money. They didn't know in advance what they would get.
Hopefully it has highlighted the profit that can be made by companies.
Many people who attended said that they hadn't given it much thought before fair trade week. Hopefully they will pay more attention to what they buy.

**Roxy** · Mar 19th, 2006, 03:29 AM

Rob(QG)

I currently buy fairtrade (and organic) as much as I can for food, tea and coffee.

I do need to make more of an effort when buying clothes, though

Same here.

I have also bought some fair trade greeting cards and jewellery from a store called Ten Thousand Villages, here in Vancouver. They sell fair trade products from all over the world. The proceeds from the greeting cards were to help ladies in Thailand afford housing, food and education for their children and the jewellery proceeds went to help a group of women in India. This store also has some great funky pieces of furniture - so that's the first place I'll go to when I am in need (and can afford) a new item of furniture.