Fairtrade Fortnight is to return under the slogan ‘Make It Happen. Choose Fairtrade’ as the Fairtrade Foundation urges businesses make a push in improving supplier equilibrium in 2009.
Retailers, licensees and commercial companies are currently gearing up for Fairtrade Fortnight, 23 Feb - 8 March, which looks set to be bigger than ever before with hundreds of in-store activities planned around the country.
The theme, ‘Make it Happen. Choose Fairtrade’, is pertinent this year as the Fairtrade Foundation is one year into its ambitious five-year strategy, ‘Tipping the Balance’, which aims to enable twice as many producers to be benefiting from selling Fairtrade goods in the UK by 2012. Those already supplying the UK market should also be able to double the proportion of the crop they sell through the Fairtrade system, they believe.
There are now more than 4,500 Fairtrade products certified, over a wide range of product categories. This is expected to include olive oil and cosmetics in the coming year as the ‘Tipping the Balance’ strategy aims to increase sales four-fold by 2012, partly through the introduction of new product categories.
Bananas continue to be a best-selling Fairtrade Mark product and one in four bananas sold in the UK are now Fairtrade. Fairtrade Fortnight will culminate with Fairtrade campaigners up and down the country attempting to set a world record for eating Fairtrade bananas between midday on 6 March and midday on 7 March.
Independent shops and retailers such as Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and the Co-operative will support the initiative by making supplies available and on-pack messaging.
Harriet Lamb, Fairtrade Foundation’s chief executive officer, said: “Fairtrade enables companies to put value back into products and engage the public’s interest in attributes beyond price.
“By nurturing sustainable supply chains, businesses can not only secure long-term quality relationships with their suppliers, but are also respond to consumer demand which shows people want to buy products carrying the Fairtrade Mark more regularly if that are available.”
Seven in 10 households purchase Fairtrade goods, including an extra 2.3 million more households in the last year alone, helping Fairtrade sales reach an estimated half a billion pounds (approx £493m) in 2007, a 72 per cent increase on the previous year. By the end of 2007 there were over 430 producer organisations selling to the UK and 632 certified producer groups globally, representing more than 1.5 million farmers and workers.
Last year an estimated 12,000 separate activities and events took place. This year’s activities will include a top-level conference entitled 'The global food crisis and Fairtrade: Small farmers, Big solutions?' at the Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre in Westminster, aimed at developing a better understanding of the links between the food crisis, small-scale farmers and Fairtrade.
The conference will be chaired by George Alagiah, patron of the Fairtrade Foundation, and will include presentations from Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury’s, and other high-profile speakers.
Fairtrade Fortnight’s official public launch will be an Olympic-themed event in central London on Sunday 22 February. Sports activities including a Fairtrade chocolate relay race, and giant inflatable banana jousting are planned. Celebrities, including Olympic medal winners, are expected to attend.
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