UK: 20 years of Fairtrade mark

Two decades ago the first products carrying the Fairtrade mark were launched in the UK. The Fairtrade Foundation in the UK invites the public to learn more on Fairtrade and to get involved. The Fairtrade journey can be tracked with a handy timeline and a quiz can be taken. People are encouraged to celebrate the Fairtrade achievements by holding an event. Ideas and resources can be found here. A gallery will be created from photos from campaigner events later on. (Picture: Poster for the campaign - Teresa Rivera, coffee producer)
 

The Fairtrade Foundation is working with local campaigners to hold regional conferences in autumn of this year, in place of the annual supporter conference, to provide campaigners with the opportunity to engage more closely with their networks and ensure that the agenda is relevant to geographical needs. Each day will have a variety of workshops and speakers and will be joined by a producer of Fairtrade goods to hear more about how Fairtrade has affected their work and community. Elections will also be held for the National Campaigner Committee representatives. Each event is free but registration is essential. More information is available from the regional conferences page. Although the Fairtrade mark has been featured on products for twenty years, the fight for fairer trade has been going for much longer. Insight into campaigner and producer experiences can be found here and here.

The book Fighting the Banana Wars and Other Fairtrade Battles (picture) by CEO of Fairtrade International Harriet Lamb has been revised and updated on the occasion of the 20th year of the Fairtrade mark in the UK. The book begins with the dramatic battles behind the fight to bring Fairtrade bananas to supermarket shelves and ends with the Fairtrade Foundation’s 2014 Make Bananas Fair campaign. In between these two ‘banana bookends’ is the story of what turns Fairtrade from what Lamb has described as ‘the tiniest minnow battling to swim upstream, mocked by all’ to a household name, helping to transform the lives of more than seven million farmers, workers and their families in the developing world.

The book is subtitled ‘How we took on the corporate giants to change the world’ and was first published in 2008. This revised version includes Fairtrade’s many developments since then, from certification of some of the world’s biggest brands including Maltesers and Kit Kat to launching on the Kenyan, Indian and South African growing economic markets. More information on the book is available here.