Do You Buy Fair Trade Products?
If you’ve read this blog for a while, you know I’m a fan of fair trade. I always buy fair trade coffee and this year I’ve bought fair trade Halloween candy to give out to the trick-or-treaters. Treehugger is conducting a survey right now asking Do You Buy Fair Trade? They are asking because fair trade products tend to cost more than their non-fair trade equivalents. With money being tight they want to know if people have stopped buying fair trade.
I will admit that I faltered the other day in the coffee isle at the grocery store. A good tasting brand was 50% off and I considered grabbing it “just this once” instead of my fair trade brand. But I ended up choosing the fair trade. But there was another item that I usually always buy organic that I chose an inorganic option of because of the price this time. Like I mentioned in my post earlier today – it comes down to the day to day choices we have to make.
How about my readers? Do you ever buy fair trade? What do you buy? Coffee? Chocolate? Sugar? Had the economy made it more difficult for you to choose to do so?
Like you, I faltered the other day. I normally get my fair trade coffee from a Honduran family at Farmers Market. I didn’t go to the farmers market over the weekend, so didn’t have fresh bread and coffee. So instead of buying fair trade, I supported a local business (bakery) that sells bread. (and a great espresso roast Swiss coffee)
I won’t substitute on organic organic milk and eggs though. I would rather go without than not buy organic.
Ugh, I just bought non-organic milk tonight because my grocery store which carries a small amount was completely out. It’s usually something I insist on, too. As for eggs, I get mine from a local farm that isn’t certified organic but could be if not for all of the hoops they’d have to jump through.
I started with fairtrade coffee. What products can I look for that are fairtrade ther than coffee and chocolate?
I am big into fair trade clothing! It’s so much better for the work force in the world and along with that, it exposes consumers to organic and sustainable clothing too! One great site I always rave about on my blog is http://www.embodies.com. They carry a brand of fair-trade, hand sewn, organic jeans (along with other great stuff) by Good Society. Anyhoo! Thought I would share
Janine – this probably isn’t a complete list, but food wise:
coffee
tea
cocoa
fresh fruit
sugar
honey
rice
vanilla
flowers
wine
Theresa – I checked out embodies.com. I want those yellow shoes on the homepage – but wow, pricey. The stuff is really good looking, though. Thanks for pointing to a new resource.
OK, I’m really a virgin here. I’d never heard of “fair trade” products before reading your blog a few weeks ago, Robin. Educate me. (Or refer me to an earlier blog post to educate myself!)
gjk – here’s a post I did a while back on fair trade
http://robinshreeves.blogspot.com/2007/10/what-is-fair-trade-certified.html
You should get the gist from there but if you want to delve into it further go to
http://www.transfairusa.org/