Booths flags up Fairtrade Fortnight

Northern England supermarket chain Booths is taking part in Fairtrade Fortnight by hosting a series of tastings to promote its Fairtrade wines.

The chain – which stocks more than 100 Fairtrade products – is hoping to encourage customers to embrace a wider range of ethically-produced goods including wine, chocolate and coffee.

“Fairtrade wine is one of the most exciting and fast-expanding categories in the wine market and the quality has improved enormously in the past few years,” Booths’ wine buyer Sally Holloway said.

“By enjoying a bottle of Fairtrade wine you are helping to improve the lives of local growers and their families,” Holloway added.

Among Booths’ Fairtrade wines are Stellar Organic Merlot from South Africa, which contains no added sulphur, and Vinedos de la Posada Torrontes, and organic dry white from Argentina described by Jancis Robinson MW as: “The best Fairtrade wine I have come across so far”.

Booths also sells Fairtrade coffees, teas, chocolate, spices, biscuits and sugar.

To earn a Fairtrade label, firms must pay local producers a fair price, and invest further to improve working conditions and local sustainability.

The Fairtrade mark is an independent consumer label that appears on products as a guarantee that disadvantaged producers in the developing world are getting a better deal.

More than seven million people – farmers, workers and their families – across 58 developing countries now benefit from the international Fairtrade system.

Fairtrade Fortnight runs from 28 February to 13 March.

Lucy Shaw, 28.02.2011