It’s UWE Fairtrade Fortnight 2025!

From Monday 17 February to Sunday 2 March, UWE Bristol is celebrating its very own Fairtrade Fortnight. This year we want to get the message across that making the small switch to Fairtrade products helps farmers and workers overseas to safeguard their future in an increasingly uncertain world.

Strong staff support for Fairtrade

Our annual Fairtrade survey shows that nearly all recognise the logo and that over 70% buy products on and off campus at supermarkets and independent shops. The reasons you give for choosing Fairtrade range from giving a fair price for producers and concern for their working conditions to great tasting products, care for the planet and environmental sustainability, and because it makes you feel good. And you like UWE being an accredited Fairtrade University!

One of the biggest barriers you find in buying Fairtrade is difficulty in finding it on our shop shelves, something that we are experiencing at UWE too. Did you know coffee, bananas and chocolate could soon be much more difficult to find on our shelves? Climate change is making crops like these harder and harder to grow. Combined with deeply unfair trade, communities growing these crops are being pushed to the brink. Fairtrade is supporting them to be more able to cope with the effects of our changing weather by working with them to exchange of experience good practice and research on more resilient farming techniques.

In this Fairtrade Fortnight we want to show you the difference Fairtrade makes and where you can buy products on campus and in your local area.

What is Fairtrade – the basics 

Fairtrade works with farming co-operatives, businesses and governments to make trade fairer. It sets social, economic and environmental standards for the companies and farmers involved in the supply chain. For farmers the standards include protection of workers’ rights and the environment. The scheme is half owned by producers from Latin America Africa and Asia making it the only ethical food mark to be so. The Fairtrade mark ensures that commercial companies pay a minimum stable fair price for products. In a world where prices are increasingly volatile, this enables producers to plan, improve their businesses, develop skills and increasingly, adapt to climate change. 

A focus on tea

But the problem is that the producers can only charge the minimum price if there is the demand. For several years there has been so much tea on the market and there hasn’t been the demand from customers, so only 7 percent of tea has been sort on Fairtrade terms. As a result the producers have not received the minimum price and all the associated benefits. So this year if there is one thing you would like to do to support Fairtrade it is to seek out and buy Fairtrade tea!

Photo Fairtrade Foundation

Buying Fairtrade on campus 

We are making it easy for you to find and buy a Fairtrade product during the fortnight by highlighting where they are sold on campus:  

• Our cafes sell Fairtrade products and will be running a ‘Fairtrade break’ deal in the fortnight whereby you get a hot Fairtrade tea or coffee with a delicious half price Fairtrade flapjack 

• The Student Union shop at Frenchay sells Fairtrade products from coffee and chocolate to clothing (see the great Tshirts and hoodies by Neutral clothing https://neutral.com/pages/fairtrade)  and during this fortnight will be selling all Fairtrade products with a 10% discount, identified in the aisles by a Fairtrade fact 

• If you use Greggs at Frenchay, you may not know but many of their products are Fairtrade – tea coffee sugar hot chocolate orange juice cakes and biscuits 
• Morrisons at Frenchay stocks Fair Trade Ethiopian Ground Coffee

• Plus, during the fortnight there will be bake sales on all campuses run by student societies and volunteers.
• To let people know more about Fairtrade, there will be stalls and displays and a global café.

And if you want to raise awareness in your team why not have a Fairtrade tea/coffee break? Contact vicki.harris@uwe.ac.uk if you would like some materials and information to show.

Buying Fairtrade elsewhere 

And off campus there are many places you can find Fairtrade products; staples such as tea coffee sugar and bananas and treats like chocolate clothes bedding wine flowers and more. Here are a few common outlets: 

• The Co-Op supermarket sells these regular items at the same price as its own brand and currently is the cheapest stockist with the widest range of products 

• Aldi Lidl M & S and Tesco all sell a range of popular items – Sainsbury’s less so 

• And many health food shops: here are a few examples in Bristol such as Scoopaway on Gloucester Road, and Better Food company in St Werburghs, Whapping Wharf and Whiteladies Road.
• And of course there are online outlets see https://www.fairtrade.org.uk/buying-fairtrade/ and https://www.ethicalsuperstore.com/tags/fair-trade/ .

This Fairtrade Fortnight we ask you to look out for Fairtrade products in shops and cafes. Because the more people swap to Fairtrade, the more Fairtrade farmers can invest in their lives and communities and in taking on the climate crisis that's threatening their future right now.

Thank you.

To find out more about Fairtrade at UWE visit https://www.uwe.ac.uk/about/values-vision-strategy/sustainability/fairtrade-facts-and-benefits