Trade Aid and cool Fair Trade stuff!

To continue our search for great places to buy Fair Trade products we visited the Trade Aid Shop, at 133 George St, to see what we could find. I have fond memories of Trade Aid. As a child it was like a dim Aladdin’s cave, full of small and shiny and exotic things that smelled like places with huge moons and acacia trees, places with tigers and elephants and giant butterflies. Best of all, everything in the shop is, of course, Fair Trade.. so buying here will help people and their communities right across the globe . The shop in Dunedin is still full of bright-coloured and shiny things – jewellery, Russian Dolls, toys and candles, baskets and bags – but it also has Fairtrade food products.

This is what we found: Chilli, Cinnamon, Cardamom, Black Pepper, Ginger and Cloves and to go with your spicy meal, there are yummy-flavoured poppadoms. There is Palestinian extra-virgin olive oil, cous cous, dates, raisins and nuts alongside all kinds of coffee, sugar, tea, cocoa and chocolate in dark, peppermint and mocha. Mouthwatering stuff, and if you want to wander among the exotic foods and exotic gifts they can whip you up a delicious flat white to sip on while you browse.

Read more about Trade Aid here

Cadbury’s turns full circle..

After enduring a month or so of thorough vilification for introducing palm oil to their chocolate, Cadbury’s has backed down, changed their mind, reformed and in the process have taken a huge leap forward.

Not only have they removed palm oil from their ingredient list, they have also pledged to buy only fair trade cocoa for their Dairy Milk chocolate, a step that will triple New Zealand’s Fair Trade sales – and hopefully improve lives and reduce the high levels of child labour that currently abound in cocoa-producing regions of West Africa. The company are hoping to be fully certified by the Fair Trade Labelling Association by Easter next year. We like it!! 

Read more about Cadbury’s move to Fair Trade here

And if you want to see how it will work, Cadbury UK decided to go Fairtrade earlier this year, aiming to be fair in the kiwi Spring of 2009 – which is really soon. 1 September? There is a blog written from Ghana following their progress and with lots of interesting stuff about chocolate and cocoa trading here.

Fair Trade tea: building futures

bananas having fun with fair trade

Fair trade bananas in dominican republic

cotton in cameroon

Conversations with Adam Philps-

To hear Adam Philps talk about

his experience in India visiting

a Fair Tradecommunity play the file below.

To play and download the interview from UniTube click here.

Photos taken by Adam Philps. A big Thanks to Adam for his time and participation in this project.

FREE… hot choc & choc sometime soon…

FREE… Rumour has it there is going to be free Fair Trade hot choc & chocolate at Uni sometime soon.  To launch Otago Uni to become a Fair Trade campus.

Last thursday was postponed.  We will keep you in the loop so you can support the movement for a Fair Trade campus & warm your belly with a delicious a hot chocolate.

Did you know?…

Another crazy fact.

There are 500-1000 different types of bananas in the world. But only one type- the Cavendish make up 99% of the bananas exported to Europe and North America.

Dunedin Trade Aid coffee deal

grab your mug

Trade Aid in Dunedin- has fantastic coffee. Just by taking in your own mug you will get a large coffee for the price of a regular. So next time you need a coffee fix, have your coffee vessel at hand to be in on this great deal. Not only are you supporting fair trade you are limiting your waste and is sustainable way to drink takeaway coffee.