Your fortnight in coffee
Fairtrade Fortnight started yesterday, so I'm sure you're keen to do your bit to make the world a better place. The Wellingtonista would, therefore, like you to help us do a little research.
There are a lot of coffee companies in Wellington who now offer fairtrade beans. We want you to get drinking and tell us what the best ones are. You can use the fairtrade locator to start your search, but it may be a little out of date - there is no Malo Cafe anymore, for example - so it might be best if you ask your favourite cafes if they have fairtrade beans - and if they don't, ask them why the hell they don't. Go forth and caffinate!
Fairtrade goes beyond coffee.
It most certainly does, but for the purposes of the Wellingtonista it either had to be coffee or martinis, and I don't know of any fairtrade gin...
maybe just spend the next fortnight asking retailers "Where did this come from?" and get some awareness of who's hands touched this before yours.
Here's something rank I heard of recently: a fêted Wellington business recently moved production of one of its product-lines to SE Asia.. but is demanding its staff lie and say that the product is still manufactured locally.
Ugh.
Two FT fortnight events catch the eye:
A genuine caffeine fest at St Johns on Thursday eve;
And Saturdays football - incl what promises to be a diabolical display by our ShoppingFix team.
I am scared at the amount of fair trade coffee I'm likely to drink before May 14... gulp...
More at mine:
http://shoppingfix.blogspot.com/2007/04/caffeine-and-cleats.html
Fairtrade goes beyond coffee.
New World in karori sells fairtrade chocolate, called "scarborough fair".
Lush has lotsa fair trade soap and cosmetics (yes, there's exploitation in production the raw ingredient in what you're washing your hands in)
trade aid ROCKS!
New Zealand made clothing is beautiful, and we have decent and enforced labor laws here, so you know the standard of working conditions.