Fair Trade in Stromness

 

On Thursday we decided to go and have a look at where people can buy fair trade goods in Stromness.

 

The Co-op and the church kindly accepted our request to visit them so off we set.

 

Miss Kelday's group had a guess as to how many Fair Trade products the Co-op would sell.

 

We guessed a few but were in for a huge surprise!!!

 

We found loads and loads of Fair Trade goods.  We were really surprised to discover that some of the big chocolate companies, like Cadbury's, were starting to get involved with Fair Trade.  This is a good example of what we found out during our Cocoa Bean Game earlier in the week.  We learned that the big companies have to listen to what the customers want.  Well Done to those big companies for listening!

 

On our trip to the Co-op we found out that they were the first supermarket to bring Fair Trade goods to Britain.  This was 16 years ago.  Although, the Co-op have been trading fairly for 160 years, making sure their customers always get a good deal. 

 

While looking around the shelves we also discovered that being Fair Trade does not necessarily mean more expensive.  Most of the time the Fair Trade goods were the same price as the non-fair trade goods.  This surprised us a little too.

 

The Co-op also very kindly gave us a sample of some Fair Trade goods to take back to school.  Thank you SO much for this....we look forward to having a peedie taste!

 

 

We also visited Stromness Church to see what Fair Trade goods they had on display.  Mr Burside showed us the stall or Traidcraft items and also told us a bit more about Fair Trade.

 

 

Mr Burnside showed us his Fair Trade football.  He bought this for £12 from a Fair Trade shop in Dornoch.  He highly recommends this shop to anyone who may be in the Dornoch area.

 

He asked us to think about footballers and how much they get paid. Our guesses were all in the thousands.  He told us that the average footballer gets over £5000 per week with Premiership footballers getting up to or over £200,000 per week.  We were shocked by this.

 

He then asked us to think about who makes most of the footballs in the world.  Erik correctly said Pakistan.  Mr Burnside told us that it is usually small children (sometimes as young as 5) who hand sew footballs for hours on end.  Guess how much they get paid per week for their hard work...?

£1.20 or less!!!!  We couldn't believe this.

 

Mr Burnside told us his football came from a company called Ethletic which does not allow children to make footballs and ensures the workers get a good wage. 

In Miss Kelday's group, Erik and Shayne competed to see who could do the most keepie-uppies with the FT football.  Shayne was the winner with 7 so received a FT choccie prize!  He was delighted and thought the FT chocolate was REALLY GOOD!

 

 

It looks like Gary was the winner in Miss Hutchisons group.

 

We had a look at the other items on sale at the church and Mr Burnside kindly gave us a wee taste of some of the goodies.  We had some Geobar, dried mango and chocolate.  Thank you very much Mr Burnside!!