Today the Fairtrade foundation and Mars chocolates have made the exciting announcement that next year Maltesers will go Fairtrade. This is especially exciting as the last thing I’d heard (over a year ago) was that Mars were signing up to Rainforest Alliance and certified Cocoa and not Fairtrade but the press release today suggests this   Read More …

So it was the turn of Morrissons to receive an e-mail from me. Much like Sainsburys the response came quickly (unlike McDonalds who I e-mailed a month ago asking why they have Fairtrade coffee in Switzerland but not the UK and have had no reply) Here’s what I e-mailed: Hello, When shopping in your store   Read More …

Recently we’ve tried shopping at Sainsburys*. If you didn’t know Sainsburys are the biggest stockest of Fairtrade (and also the most ethical of the big 4) in the UK and really simple things like basics (33p a box) tea bags are Fairtrade plus their own brand chocolate and alongside this there’s all sorts of other   Read More …

Every year Fairtrade run a campaign called ‘Fairtrade Fortnight’…in previous years it’s seen exciting announcements such as Sainsbury’s changing all their bananas to Fairtrade and the arrival of a Fairtrade Dairy Milk and whilst this year there are no huge announcements (yet) there are more and more Fairtrade products available than ever and at even more   Read More …

Last night Channel 4 aired the programme ‘Dispatches: Fasion’s Dirty Secret’ (which you can watch here). During the programme a couple of undercover reporters investigated how fashion in this country is being made in sweatshops. One reporter took a job at a manufacturer in Leicester where he was paid £2.5o an hour, made to work   Read More …

As I drove past Morrisons yesterday on my way home from my gym I realised that it had almost been 6 weeks since I stepped foot inside my little local supermarket and I realised that come Sunday I could break my fast of supermarkets…the thing is the majority of me doesn’t want to! When I   Read More …

I heard from friends that the panorama on the 24th March had been on chocolate, it’s origins and Fairtrade so I thought I’d give it a watch (you can too here). I have to say having watched Panorama on Primark I expected something negative…and in fairness I was half right. The program aimed to show   Read More …

This last week and the week we’re about to enter into are not just any old weeks. if you don’t know we are actually right in the middle of ‘Fairtrade Fortnight’ which is a yearly two weeks aiming to raise awareness of Fairtrade and aimed at encouraging more people to source Fairtrade products as part   Read More …

Whilst this minister has set himself the challenge of visiting all 10,000 parishioners during lent and spent last year’s lent sleeping on his church roof I’m planning to do something slightly less extreme…actually 3 slightly less extreme things! Firstly from today (the beginning of lent) I shall be aiming to blog everyday during lent…some of   Read More …

So the Fairtrade Kit Kat has hit the stores and Morrissons in particular have been plugging it with a leaflet at all their checkouts and whilst my initial response wasn’t very positive I thought I’d give Nestle a chance and give their leaflet a read. The lovely people at Nestle (sarcasm) have decided that when   Read More …