Greenbelt Festival - Fairtrade Muffins in demand

This year the Christian Aid cafe at the annual Greenbelt Festival was host to Wish4 Fairtrade. A year ago Wish4 was still a dream, and we were at the festival as volunteers, learning just what a great festival it is. This year we're back as purveyors of the only Fairtrade muffins and hand baked, all natural snack bars on site. And with 20,000 festival goers to satisfy from dawn to dusk, its a great place to do a bit of market research. Clearly our chocolate and blueberry muffins are the stars of our modest show.
Great moments at the festival include the 'beer and hymns' session, about which some people had been wondering 'what is it really about ?'....to which the organisers....who contemplated the question for many hours.....were able to reply:- 'well....when you home in on its possible spiritual significance, and philosophical meaning, its best summed up as a time spent.....drinking beer........and......er.....er.......singing.....hymns ??!!'

 

Check it out !

Fairtrade Cost Cutting

Costcutter stores througout Ireland are now listed for Wish4 Fairtrade's new range of Fairtrade confectionery, and bakery snacks. So next to the fairtrade coffee to go in these stores you can enjoy the taste of a healthy Fruit Nut Seed bar, or a traditional millioanire's Shortbread made in a way that guarentees growers a fair price, but also just tastes good. No preservatives, colourings, flavourings. Real butter NOT vegetable margarine, Real chocolate NOT chocolate flovaoured coating.
And if you're still Wishing4 your first experienc of this, just contact us now....We're very kind, and happy to grant your Wish4 free !

Cultivating Fairtrade in Dublin

Today was World Humanitarian Day, and in Dublin the Cultivate Centre hosted an open day in the old ENFO offices in Suffolk Street at which Concern aid workers and others were discussing what they do, and inviting everyone to have a FREE fairtrade coffee. Concern is a great organisation, but few people know of Cultivate which is the irish centre for development of Transition Towns, and sustainable communities. All in all an excellent event. Hopefully as a wealthy (oh yes, even in deep recession that's a fact !) people, we find it in our ? hearts ? (and elsewhere) to do the right thing more regularly. So, a fairtrade toast (wine, coffee, vodka even) tonight to Concern, Fairtrade Mark Ireland, and Cultivate.

New Irish get fairtrade faster

Another day talking to retailers on the ground about new Fairtrade products. Most revealing is the fact that the Wish4 Fairtrade range was most enthusiastically welcomed by a newcomer to Ireland. A very friendly manager at Costcutter, born somewhere outside of europe/USA.

Although Fairtrade is now taught in every national and secondary school in the land, shop managers seem mostly unaware, and are missing out on a chance to convert €000's in their annual sweet sales to €000's in Fairtrade sweet sales. And all those local students are their future customers too.

Fairtrade Twitterings

After all these months, and over 400 tweets, I finally discovered the little button that gives you access to the DIRECT tweets that you receive from others. Like getting a reply to your message. Turns out I had a load of these, and embarrassingly had never followed up on them. So, apologies to Green Party minister Ciaran Cuffe, for those of you watching in Ireland, and to the likes of Shrewsbury Fairtrade Town, and certianly to Bangor Fairtrade Town for those of you watching in UK.

It showed me how useful Twittier can be in bringing together like minded people, and after a free trial of 'Tweet Adder' I think I'll be even more able to enjoy the growing international enthusiasm for Fairtrade.

I even came across a couple of overseas suppliers, and although Malawi has few twitterers, it is a special place for me, and one I would love to serve in a more practical way by helping develop small enterprises.

If I can do it to a standard approved by Enterprise Ireland, I guess I should be able to contribute to entrepreneurship in Malawi.

Not quite sure how that might work out, and meantime we have to focus on the day job which is all about getting college catering outlets well prepared for new terms with plenty of Wish4 Blueberry Muffins etc.

A day on the Fairtrade road

Spent a day on the road selling yesterday. Not done that for a few years. I was mostly greeted with interest and courtesy, and just once with a 'well we wouldn't be interested in that boy' ! The Fairtrade message takes longer to get into shop managers minds (and onto shelves) than into the customers minds.

We all know we say things we never act on, but for these people, its their decisions that are holding up sales of Fairtrade products. Even in a Fairtrade town, shop owners can be clueless.

I was in a Costcutter store where the white sugar sachets by the take away coffee were Fairtrade, but the coffee wasn't. The manager seemed oblivious.

All of which convinced me of the opportunities out there.

The highlight of the day was the call on a garden centre cafe who loved our products, AND were meeting their coffee supplier later to make the switch to Fairtrade !

A match made somewhere in Africa...Fairtrade Coffee AND a Fairtrade Honey & Fruit Flapjack.

Fairtrade at Electric Picnic

Preparations are well underway for Ireland's Electric Picnic festival in September. The organisers promote Fairtrade, which is great, and the Wish4 Fairtrade chocolate muffin is the Official Muffin of Electric Picnic this year. Amnesty will have supplies available in their 24 hour BINGO tent !