Fairtrade Fortnight set to begin with Endangered Aisle pop up event
pic: Fairtrade
Fairtrade Fortnight in the UK is set to kick off featuring a pop up, The Endangered Aisle, in East London, placing a spotlight on the major environmental and wider social challenges facing key supply chains, including the cocoa trade, writes Neill Barston.
The annual focus – which is between 27 February and 12 March, aims to showcase how much of a difference consumers can make in supporting the global movement in its bid to support agricultural communities around the world.
Organised by Fairtrade UK, the event underlines the fact that without greater support, many staple household items, including chocolate, may become increasingly difficult to source without sustained, enhanced support for those in its supply chains – who are facing the direct impact of many decades of negative environmental impacts on their respective nations.
Notably, Fairtrade played a key role in our World Confectionery Conference in Brussels, which showcased the ongoing work which it is doing in seeking to help deliver a living wage for farmers in West Africa, and other global regions, against a backdrop of major challenges including the cost of living crisis and wider inflation impacting on their operations.
As the movement noted, its Endangered Aisle campaign demonstrates the urgent threat to the future of British shopping basket staples taken for granted are facing challenges caused by climate crisis. For cocoa, research shows that many cocoa-growing regions in Ghana and Ivory Coast will likely become too hot to grow the crop by 2050.
Among those participating in the London even is Guylian, which is 100% Fairtrade, and as the first major Belgian chocolate producer to join the social justice movement, which aims to guarantees a fair and fixed price for cocoa farmers through additional premiums.
In addition to Fairtrade Fortnight, February has been designated as ‘Fairbruary’ encouraging shoppers to engage with its ranges over the entire month, ranging from chocolates through to banana bread over 2,500 brands with 27,000 Fairtrade certified products on offer around the world. This has been done under the social media tag of #Fairbruary.
Guylian’s ranges are among those on offer for the London event, The Endangered Aisle, 28 February to 1 March, 32 Shoreditch High Street, London, E1 6PG.
