January Market

Ohhhh January Market what could be better than you?  The thought of strolling through eleven floors of showrooms (that normally aren’t open on the weekend), seeing the latest and greatest in design, while munching on food so good.

While at market, you really do lose all sense of time and reality.  Those three hours that you originally had to spare, have suddenly vanished, and you can’t remember the last real meal that you had, before your body was taken over by delectable ice cream bars, greasy popcorn, cotton candy and sliced salami.  The overwhelming feeling of excitement upon seeing beautiful new products is almost too much to handle.  But not to worry, you know that a glass of wine from Global Views or a warm cookie from Two’s Company will numb the pain of not being able to take home every fabulous piece that you lay eyes on.  Each new showroom that you stumble upon brings the promise of finding another “wow” piece for a project and ends up catapulting a plethora of exciting ideas.  (am I giving you goosebumps yet?

Is Honey a FairTrade?

Honey a FairTrade?

The answer is not as well as it should be. Here is what one of the leading organizations (http://beesfordevelopment.org) says about the struggles. Take note about the challenges and then consider how our Green Gold initiative would help fill the gaps:

From its start 10 years ago, Fairtrade honey is now an established product in European shops.  However, there are significant costs and capacity demands associated with certification; farmers must organise on a larger scale than they may be used to. It is arguably rather easier to gain Fairtrade status for products, such as tea, sugar, coffee, bananas and chocolate, that already have historically established, large scale organisation and export routes than it is for honey which frequently has a fragmented and scattered production base and weak market linkages. Producers need to weigh up all the available options very carefully, ensuring they have calculated all the potential costs and considered the logistical problems that will arise.

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