Fairtrade Fornight Celebrates it's 30th year!

This year Fairtrade Fortnight moved to September to co-incide with the 30th anniversary of Fairtrade in the UK. Here at Central Co-op we passionatly support the movement and completed lots of varied activity during the two week period.

Between 9 -22 September we decided to hold customer/member awareness events at our stores in the first week, and have education activity in the second week, which allowed school settings the time to get their young people settled in to a new school year.

The first four days saw members of the Western MCC and myself deliver awareness events in store at Fosseway Gate in Lichfield, Highfield Road in Cannock, Eastham in The Wirral, Clayton-Le-Woods near Preston, Brereton Way in Stafford, Queensway in Rugeley, Eton Park in Burton-upon-Trent, and Brooklime Way in Tamworth. This allowed us to talk to customers and members about all things Fairtrade, taste some Co-op and Tony's Fairtrade chocolate and cookies, hear about the activity we deliver to support our community, see the products in our Malawi Range, and sign up customers who want to join us and reap the benefits of Central Co-op Membership.

The final part of the first week saw me have a Fairtrade break at home, deliver more store sessions in Birmingham, and our very our MCC member Shaz organise a Fairtrade Quiz night.

Shaz Writes 'As part of Fairtrade Fortnight, Central Co-op hosted a Fairtrade Quiz at the Warehouse Cafe in Birmingham on Sunday the 15th of September. 

In this quiz participants got to both sample Fairtrade chocolate and get their thinking caps on. There was a round where people had to guess which Fairtrade chocolate they were sampling. There was also a round where those taking part had to design their own Fairtrade product and supply chain. How much would the grower of the crop get versus the seller at the end? Most of the time the grower of the crop gets very little compared to the other end of the supply chain. 

 We also had more traditional rounds on sports, general knowledge, as well as a fiendishly difficult round on the history of Fairtrade. At the end of the quiz Richard and Hugh were victorious in the quiz. They received Fairtrade wine and chocolate from Central Co-op as a tasty prize. 

 Everybody enjoyed learning about Fairtrade, but most importantly were happy to support Fairtrade. It ensures that those that make our products get a fairer price than when prices are just left to the market to decide."

During the second week of Fairtrade Fortnight we took our promoting of the message into education spaces. our first stop was St Wilfred's Primary school where i delivered an assembly and spoke with their School Council about the benefits of Fairtrade and becoming a Fairtrade school. I then spent the day with students from Walsall College where I delivered our 'Mind Your Money' game alongside talking about fairtrade and the finances behind the movement. Durning a community meeting at our Insomnia Cafe in Lichfield, we had a lovely Fairtrade Latte. We then had another round of assemblies and workshops at Rykneld, and Veritas Primary schools in Burton and Stafford, and finished the tour with a visit to Wolverhampton to attend their AGM.

With 22 events delivered over the two weeks it was great to be able to promote Fairtrade and talk to our community about the way the movement supports workers and farmers who grow the foods we like to eat.