To mark Fairtrade Fortnight 2016 and bring awareness to ways of helping farmers worldwide get a better deal, we recently hosted a Fairtrade Big Brunch event at our Flintshire headquarters.
Fairtrade supports those who produce our food to feel secure while inspiring people in the UK to use the power of their shopping to choose a fairer deal for farmers and workers.
Being part of Fairtrade means farmers get a fairer price for their products, and a little extra to invest in developing their farms.
To help to raise awareness for the campaign among our own workforce we challenged staff to cook their favourite recipes using Fairtrade ingredients.
Our neighbours at Starbucks at The Village Hotel St Davids supported the event by providing and serving up a range of Fairtrade teas and coffees, while Fairtrade chocolate company Divine Chocolate, 44% of which is owned by cocoa farmers, supplied products for blind chocolate tasting as well as prizes for our best bakers.
Donations at the brunch raised around £120 for our Group charity of the year Claire House Children’s Hospice.
Nicola Johansen, sustainability manager, said: “The event was a great success with lots of people getting involved to raise awareness for a worthy cause. We have some wonderful bakers within our team, with a range of tasty treats served up using as many Fairtrade ingredients as possible, including sugar, honey, bananas, vanilla, coffee and of course lots of chocolate!
“We also challenged staff to try to tell the difference between Fairtrade chocolate from Divine and non-Fairtrade chocolate with most agreeing that the Fairtrade product tasted nicer and was of a higher quality.
“We’d also like to thank Starbucks at The Village Hotel St Davids and the team at Divine Chocolate for their support.”
For more information on Fairtrade visit www.fairtrade.org.uk.
