Fair enough

On Saturday I’m helping out at a stall at the Harvest Home Food and Drink Festival at Ellisland. The stall is being run by Dunscore Fairtrade Group and I’ve been tasked with buying a selection of Fairtrade goods to display on the stall as part of an activity.

The Fairtrade Group was founded (by me!) over 10 years ago and is still thriving. Dunscore is a Fairtrade Village with a Fairtrade School, Preschool and Church. Dumfries, Castle Douglas, Kirkcudbright and Wigtown are Fairtrade Towns. D&G is a Fairtrade Zone! So you would think it would be easy to buy Fairtrade goods....

I visited three supermarkets. Chocolate isn’t hard to come by, nor tea and coffee. Hurrah for Lidl, who have clear Fairtrade labelling on their shelves :-) The only fruit I could find anywhere was bananas. I have a friend who runs a Traidcraft stall but I wanted to show people what you could actually buy in the town. Hurrah again for Parry’s, our local greengrocer. Here I found marmalade, molasses, mango chutney and these amazing noodles.

Hurrah also for The Usual Place, where I work. The coffee beans we use in our machines are now Triple Certified (Fairtrade, Rainforest friendly and organic). We now have Fairtrade coffee in our cafetieres, too, plus a range of Fairtrade teas and chocolate sprinkles for cappuccino. It’s all a part of making the world better for people in our local community and for those further afield.