About Fairtrade:

The Fairtrade Mark is found on all sorts of products – and is an independent guarantee that the producers of commodities involved in the product have been paid a fair price for their labour. Buying products with the FAIRTRADE MARK also ensures that producers get long-term contracts and are paid a social premium which can be invested in development, healthcare, infrastructure and education projects in their local communities.

The Fairtrade guarantee allows consumers to make a positive choice when buying products. You can find out more about Fairtrade on the Fairtrade Foundation or Transfair USA websites.

@AskForFairtrade

A lot of coffee shops offer Fairtrade tea and coffee. But many only have it as an option you have to ask for, rather than as their standard brew.

After getting somewhat frustrated seeing (a) that a lot of people were being misled by the presence of the Fairtrade mark on the menus of a number of national coffee chains into thinking that all the coffee they served was helping developing world producers, rather than just a small about; and (b) finding that when I asked for the Fairtrade option in many of these stores they turned out not to have any available, I set up a Twitter account called ‘AskForFairtrade‘ which I could start using to keep track of who did and who didn’t have Fairtrade options on offer.

And I thought I would invite other tea & coffee drinkers to make use of it too…

So: If you find yourself patronising a coffee shop, make sure you ask for the Fairtrade option. And afterwards send a message on twitter starting with ‘@askforfairtrade’ to let us know how you got on. Include the name of the coffee shop, the city it’s in and whether or not you were able to get your Fairtrade tea or coffee.

A campaigning experiment

If @askforfairtrade get used enough, then I’m hoping to be able to write to some of the main coffee chains to let them know how their customers think they are doing with serving Fairtrade options.

I’m also exploring how @askforfairtrade can be used to offer coffee drinkers regular reminders to ask for the fairtrade option.

If you’ve got ideas on how @askforfairtrade can develop as a campaign – do drop in a comment below…

Who’s behind all this?

That would be me, Tim Davies,  usually found blogging over here…

This project has no links with, and is no endorsed in any way by, The Fairtrade Foundation or any other Fairtrade organisation.