Archive for March, 2009

I was thinking of enrolling my two youngest children on a Drama course in the Easter holidays until I checked the dates on the calendar – the course took place on Easter Saturday and Easter Sunday. There must be some mistake. I checked again. No, definitely those days. Would people really send their kids on a course on those days? Don’t they have better things to do as a family on Easter Sunday? Has it really become just like any other day?
It reminded me of last football season when I wrongly assumed there would be no game for my son’s team on Easter Sunday morning. I was made to feel a fool, but was I really the fool? Do we really believe that just buying all that is on offer will make for a proper celebration?

Easter, like all our annual festivals, has become a great marketing opportunity – Easter bonnets, bunnies, gifts and of course, chocolate eggs. Not that any of this is in itself  wrong, but it focuses our attention on what we buy and away from the actual significance of the event.

Whether as individuals we share in the Christian celebration of the Easter weekend or not, we can all participate in celebrating new life –

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Our friends at Divine Chocolate have come up with a fantastically novel way to encourage people to send an email to politicians to keep fair trade on the agenda at next week’s G20. It’s a simple game – Egg a Politician. You get to throw a chocolate egg at one of  five world leaders — Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Manmohan Singh or Wen Jiabao — who are all attending the G20 summit, where finance ministers and central bank governors of 19 countries and the European Union will meet to discuss “key issues related to global economic stability”.

As well as the therapy of hurling the egg at your leader of choice, you then get the opportunity to send an email to that leader – direct from the page – just as soon as they’ve devoured the chocolate.

When I first read about this idea I had visions similar to the incident that saw the

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These are exciting times. We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve joined forces with Natural Collection, our companies are merging to create a single combined business to offer ethical consumers the very best in eco-friendly, organic and fair trade products. The combined business will continue trading under both names using both online and mail order catalogue to reach our customers.

Natural Collection, founded in 1999 by Julian and Joanne Spector, is a pioneering mail order retailer who offers consumers natural and organic products through the pages of its catalogue and online shop. A three-time winner of The Observer’s Ethical Awards and positive voice for change in the sector, www.naturalcollection.com has blazed a trail on ethical retail even before it became fashionable.

Here at Ethicalsuperstore.com, we’re the younger of the two companies, founded in 2004 by Vic Morgan and Andy Redfern, as the one-stop shop for fair trade, organic and eco-friendly products.  With a range of over 5000 products, our aim is to empower producers both locally and globally.

“Joining forces will enable both companies to build for an exciting future and to steer a good path through the challenging retail environment.” commented Andy Redfern, the CEO of the merged business. Joanne Spector, co-founder of Natural Collection added “Our new partnership creates great energy as we join together in our drive to promote fair trade and ecological products, which is especially important during a time when producers need the most support”.

With a shared mission to put the ethical consumer first, the combined organisation will continue to empower consumers to play an even greater role in defining the future of shopping. Pioneering a new era of information-intensive shopping we will enable shoppers to make more sustainable decisions.  “‘Hippy’ has evolved into ‘hip’ as ethical products now range from eco-gadgets to fair trade gourmet coffees.” added Vic Morgan, co-founder of the EthicalSuperstore.com “Despite adverse economic climate this team has no intention of being held back.  Together we are stronger”

Julian Spector said “We see tremendous growth opportunities in the UK market. Both companies are perfectly aligned with a common vision; by working together we can offer a blend of expertise which means we can be relied on as a one-stop-shop for all your ethical needs.”

So just 2 weeks to go until Easter and the “eat only stuff I can buy at EthicalSuperestore.com” has been going pretty well. I am now a total convert to having a vegetable box delivered every week. I love the serendipity of opening the box to see what we are going to be eating this week – healthy soups, stir frys and casseroles are now the order of the day.

However, my unblemished record has been a bit tarnished in the last 10 days. Ethical Superstore was nominated in the Emerging Retailer category at the Retail Week Awards. I had to go down for the plush event with 2000 guests in my bow tie and dress suit. Having paid £400 (how can that be justified???) I decided I’d better eat the food and as far as I know the Grosvenor House hotel doesn’t buy its food from us. The event was pretty good fun – Jimmy Carr was very entertaining . . .

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Twenty years ago, my husband and I got married at Castle Methodist Church, Colchester. I wore gypsophila in my hair a la Charlene from Neighbours; he should have gone to Specsavers. It was a beautiful sunny day and we were happy smiley people.

Twenty years ago, we were local Traidcraft reps in a fair trade wilderness. We held stalls in church halls and did talks at women’s groups in church halls. We tried to persuade people to give the coffee a go. Muesli and honey were seen as the safe options to try (although I did once find a small lump of coal in my muesli which was reduced to dust by the time I sent it to Customer Complaints). You could not buy a single fair trade item in a supermarket; you could not even envisage a day when that would become a reality.

Sixteen years ago,

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That time of year is upon us once again where the mornings are getting lighter, the evenings brighter, and our bodies are waking up from winter-mode. For me and for my family, that usually means a passion for all things Spring Cleaning comes to the fore like never before.

Whether it’s finally getting round to painting the bathroom ceiling again, fixing that dodgy shelf, clearing out your wardrobes, or giving the house a good once over; there always seems to be something to do!

But in our hurry to get the job done and in our attempt to create the tidiest and cleanest environment possible, do we sometimes neglect to think of attaining the greenest environment possible?

Read the rest of Spring Clean: The Greener Way »

I like clothes and I like shopping for them but over Christmas I looked at my wardrobe and decided enough was enough; no more fast fashion, and I’ve been looking for guilt free shopping alternatives ever since.

I’ve adopted the following Fashion rules

• Do I really need a new…..?
• Will I wear it more then once?
• Is it really worth the cash?
• Is it well made?
• And no more fast fashion-stores; Primark being at top of my list.

In January my first initiative was actually selling old clothes which I no longer wear on ebay and using the money to either buy vintage items that I couldn’t usually afford, expanding the organic fibres in my wardrobe or saving the money for a rainy day. This has been working brilliantly as I’ve sold in total 22 items and made some shrewd purchases including a pair of Vintage Terry de Havilland wedges. I’ve only had to make a couple of trips to the post office and in the process cleared space in my wardrobe and am now the proud owner of a great pair of shoes with some cash put aside for that rainy day.

In February I attended a

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Sometime in late March 1999 Waitrose received its first delivery of Geobars and my favourite snackbar was born. Of course, I’m a little bit biased as I was part of the launch team that created the product while I was working for Traidcraft. It was also bit tricky to see it on the shelf as Traidcraft was in Gateshead and the nearest Waitrose back then was in Newark – 160 miles away.

The team at Traidcraft – myself, Joe Osman (now a director at Traidcraft) and Stuart Palmer (now managing a hospital in Malawi) – were given just 10 weeks to create a product, design and produce packaging and get it manufactured and delivered to Waitrose. The original favourite name was going to be “Zanzibar” – taking the best fair trade ingredients from Africa and making a classic snackbar product. However, the fairtrade honey from Tanzania had dried up at the time and so Chilean honey was used instead. Zanzibar no longer seemed appropriate and so the Geobar was born.

Apparently 90% of all product launches fail – so the fact it still graces the shelves of supermarkets up and down the land is testament to the great ingredients and tasty recipe. As well as being the first snackbar to carry the Fairtrade Mark, it was also the first Traidcraft product to carry the mark. Until that point

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Comparing ourselves to other parents is a risky business. I waver between criticism of them eg. “Other parents let their kids stay up too late” – or inferred criticism of myself eg. “Other parents spend more time reading with their kids than we do.” Either way, it sucks.

Still, with Mother’s Day on the horizon, I will be affirmed in my role as Mum for one day, at least. The one day where having five children really pays off! Although to share the day with my daughter’s eleventh birthday is rather unfortunate, in my opinion.

Anyway, what is possibly even worse than comparing myself to other parents (and being compared to them by my kids is up there, too), is assuming that all parents think as we do. When I was called into school last Friday with a group of parents to discuss an incident of fighting, I was amazed when one man assertively informed the teacher that he was sure that all parents would join him in saying that they teach their children to

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Social labels have stepped up their outreach striking deals with McDonald’s – who sell Rainforest Alliance coffee – and just this month, Cadbury Dairy Milk has gone Fairtrade causing a hullabaloo with more stringent campaigners. We think it’s time to take a closer look at two of the big boys of eco-labelling to see just what they’re achieving and how they compare. Are Rainforest Alliance and Fairtrade tackling the same areas? When faced with the choice, where should you put your support? We make your decisions a whole lot easier.

What’s the guarantee to the consumer?

Read the rest of Looking Behind the Labels »