Pay fair for Fairtrade Fortnight with The Big Issue Shop

Fairtrade Fortnight shines a light on the farmers and workers behind our food and products.

Behind every sip of coffee, every kick of a football or every bite of a chocolate block, there is a person who toiled and grafted to get it to your doorstep.

For two weeks every year, running from February 26 to March 11 in 2018, the focus is on them and how when trade is fair, it can make the world a better place. Buying products bearing the Fairtrade mark ensures that farmers and growers get their fair share of the pay to improve their lives and the lives of their communities as well as closing the door to exploitation.

More than 1.6 million people across 74 developing countries have seen their daily routine transformed by the initiative with more than 5,000 events taking place to mark Fairtrade Fortnight last year.

The nationwide campaign is inviting consumers and businesses to ‘Come On In’ this time around – with thousands of events like breakfasts, breaks and bake-offs taking place across the country – and The Big Issue Shop has answered the call with a collection of Fairtrade products on offer.

Cafédirect’s delicious coffee is a wake-up call for you and for the farmers who benefit from receiving up to 50% of the profits from each bag. The proceeds are fed into the Cafédirect Producers’ Foundation, a UK charity that is run by farmers, for farmers, taking leadership and developing innovative solutions to the challenges they face.

This means that not only are the contents of your mug constantly improving, so are the lives of the communities where growers produce the coffee beans that make Cafédirect’s brew so great.

Divine Chocolate are no has-beans either – they are the only Fairtrade chocolate company that is also owned by coca farmers. As a result, they get the best of the best cocoa from Ghana where 85,000 smallholder farmers work tirelessly to boost the business that they own 44 per cent of through co-operative Kuapa Kokoo.

Treat yourself to a bar and a brew through The Big Issue Shop or if sport is how you get your kicks, give Bala Sport a try.

Their colourful football and rugby balls, starting from £15, make a mark on the pitch and off it with the co-operative hoping to be top of the league when it comes to helping Fairtrade farmers.

Even the little ones can get involved with Fairtrade Fortnight with Lanka Kade and Pebble’s wonderful toys.

Lanka Kade’s intricately designed educational wooden toys go towards books and daily milk drinks to several impoverished primary schools in rural Sri Lanka while Pebble’s more cuddly offerings create jobs in the Bangladesh countryside.

Adam Gardner, communities campaigns manager at the Fairtrade Foundation said: “It’s a scandalous reality that millions of farmers and workers are being ripped off despite working hard to provide the products we love. Unfairness in global trade is rooted in centuries of exploitation. Yet across the globe, millions of hard-working producers are unravelling this legacy. They’re fighting for a fair deal, supported by Fairtrade, earning their way out of poverty and transforming their communities.

“More people choosing, sharing and shouting about Fairtrade in the UK during Fairtrade Fortnight will open doors for more producers to break the stranglehold of poverty prices.”