Manchester is going bananas for a fortnight of fair trade food and wine with a focus on the ever-popular yellow fruit.
The Fairtrade Foundation has chosen the banana as the focus for this year launching the Make Bananas Fair campaign to investigate bruising supermarket price wars.
In the past ten years the typical price of a banana in the UK has nearly halved while the production costs have doubled – just one in three are approved by Fairtrade.
In a bid to tackle this problem Fairtrade events are being held throughout Manchester with a number of tasting sessions and fairs.
The biggest of the events will be guest speaker Juliet Arku-Mensah, who is a Ghanaian banana farmer and is touring the UK to highlight the difference Fairtrade can make.
Juliet said: “Fairtrade has made a big difference to the way we solve problems.
“The Fairtrade Premium has helped provide training and protective equipment for farmers, and health screenings to test workers for diabetes, hepatitis, breast cancer, HIV and other conditions.”
The foundation was set up with the purpose of ensuring farmers and workers are paid a minimum amount for their products which ensures they can sustain a livelihood.
At the same time it also seeks to ensure the food produce is of good quality by offering support and help to producers.
One Manchester store embracing the scheme is The 8th Day, which specialises in fairly-traded foods and is running events throughout the fortnight.
MM caught up with store member Sam Jones, who said that changing perceptions, and a desire to be healthy, has contributed to the shop’s success.
“People’s attitudes towards organic and fair-trade foods have certainly changed over the last few years,” she said.
“We’ve noticed a massive increase in the amount of people who want to buy, not only fair trade food, but fairly traded foods.
“I think it’s because people are more health conscious and this week alone has been our busiest week in 42 years of being open.
“Before we accept a product into our store we make sure that it ticks boxes with regard to it being fairly traded such as if it’s organic, locally-sourced or fair trade approved.”
The 8th Day provides 100% vegetarian foods ranging from fruits, jams and chocolates and is a co-op workers store, meaning it is run and managed democratically by its staff.
The store may have been considered quirky when it first started but has come a long way since then.
“When the store was first opened it was considered a 70’s hippy store,” laughed Sam.
“We’ve come a long way since then though and what we’ve found is people are looking for more ethical ways to buy food even if it means they have to pay a little bit more.”
The 8th Day has hosted a number of events already with more tasting sessions planned ranging from facial tasters to milkshakes throughout the fortnight, which runs until March 9.
For more information visit http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/
Picture courtesy of Carol (tomylees) via Flickr, with thanks
