Fairtrade Fortnight Recap

This year’s Fairtrade Fortnight took place Monday 27 February until Sunday 12 March, with the focus on climate justice and sustainability.

Our catering staff made over 500 cakes for Fairtrade charity bake sales, held at several cafes on University Park Campus and in the Medical School, using Fairtrade ingredients such as coffee, nuts, chocolate and fruit.

Customers were asked to either donate to the Fairtrade Foundation directly and/or fill in our Fairtrade survey (and could be entered into the free prize-draw) to help us understand more about our staff and student’s thoughts on Fairtrade and current ethical purchasing habits. We had nearly 200 respondents! The full results of this survey will be published in due course, but we were encouraged to note that:

• Nearly three quarters of respondents said that the issue of ethical standards around the products they buy and the companies they buy from matters a fair amount/a great deal.
• Nearly half try to buy products from companies that act in an ethical way, even if it means spending more.
• 85% thought it was important/very important that the university takes action to use and promote Fairtrade.

Coffee competition

There were also coffee bean competitions held in several of the cafes, where a total of 263 customers took park and had to guess how many coffee beans were in the jar on display. The winners will receive fairtrade hampers, donated by the UoN Retail Team.

Some cafes also had additional Fairtrade coffee samples for our customers to taste.

We want to thank the Retail Team for all their hard work with putting together such a great fortnight! And thank you to our staff, students and visitors that engaged with our Fairtrade Fortnight activities. And don’t forget that it’s not just during Fairtrade Fortnight that you can find Fairtrade items on our campuses; you can find Fairtrade coffee, bananas and confectionery across our outlets all year round.

To find out more about the Fairtrade Foundation, what Fairtrade means and how else you can get involved, click here.