Fair trade family shopping

The Door set readers a challenge to use four fair trade items a day during this year's Fair Trade Fortnight and write about their experiences.  The Thompson family from Sutton Courtenay describe their experiences below.  Their efforts win them a month's supply of Divine chocolate's new bar, Divine Orange.

We’d decided that we would limit our fairtrade purchases to consumables which weren’t grown locally. We enjoy the farmers markets and farm shops – after all, that’s a form of fairtrade isn’t it – so our fairtrade purchases would be limited to pulses, grains, fruit and veg which you could only get abroad!

We also decided that we wouldn’t alter our normal shopping routine of taking the kids, Ella and Ben, to the supermarket any time they needed some entertainment. We’d still go to the same shops in the same towns (Didcot and Abingdon) on the same days of the week but where we could buy fairtrade, we would.

We didn’t get off to the best start - our first foray to Sainsbury’s in Didcot was not successful. All we found was fairtrade coffee (which to be honest, we’d been buying for years), tea (which we’d tried before and didn’t like) and chocolate. Of course, at the mention of the ‘c’ word, Ella’s and Ben’s eyes lit up – ten minutes and one bar later, they were bouncing off the walls. Not very Jamie Oliver! However, for research purposes, we did buy some more fairtrade tea. It has to be said that it did taste nicer this time than last though Kate thinks we may have bought decaf the first time by mistake.

Our visits to Tesco’s and Waitrose in Abingdon weren’t much better which led us to one conclusion – in supermarket speak, fairtrade just isn’t sexy! It was very easy to spot the value or basic ranges, special kid-friendly food, finest ready meals or even organic produce. For some reason, fairtrade just doesn’t get the same billing. We struggled to find fairtrade produce in all the major supermarket chains which was hugely disappointing. You’d have thought they’d have been more supportive of the fairtrade movement. But then again……

So we had three of our four products – what of the fourth. We left it to the kids to decide. Our final mission was to the Co-op in Dorchester where the two children, trained to spot a fairtrade logo at ten paces, were let loose in a sort of fairtrade supermarket sweep. Sadly, it didn’t all go according to plan. Rather than find some rice, pasta, bananas or mangoes which they would proudly hold up for parental acclaim, the first fairtrade products they spotted, right at eye-level for them, was the chocolate. Oh well, if we win, at least two little people will be happy.