Saturday 10 March 2012

Bigger and Better?

Do bigger shops have more Fairtrade options? I ventured further afield than my usual Co-op on Thursday to Sainsbury's in search of more Fairtrade products. I was hoping that a bigger shop would have more variety and I think it did, but not as much as I'd hoped.

The best buy was a £6 Fairtrade cotton T-shirt (my buy for today in advance!) which just goes to show that you don't need to spent lots to guarantee a fair price for producers. There wasn't just one top though, there was a big range with different lengths, styles and colours to pick from.

I also bought my brown sugar which I mentioned yesterday and some brown rice for my Thursday product as I couldn't find any Fairtrade fruit juices even though I searched the shop. It was great to have a choice of several different Fairtrade sugar brands and it's nice to know that staples like rice can be Fairtrade too. I was really disappointed that there wasn't any Fairtrade fruit juice, especially since Fruit Passion say they sell to Sainsbury's but maybe they were just out of stock after a very successful Fairtrade Fortnight!

So, my verdict of Fairtrade in a big supermarket? Not bad but must try harder. There were lots of Fairtrade chocolates, teas and coffees but I could only find two Fairtrade fruits-bananas and pineapple. The rice and sugar own brands were nice as I haven't seen these in many shops before. I was disappointed that there wasn't any Fairtrade jewellery and I'd probably have bought some if there had been. Sainsbury's clearly understand the importance of Fairtrade, it would be nice to have just a few more products please.

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