Martin McMullan, from the Highpoint Group was one of the other speakers at the Events Day Conference I spoke at a couple of weeks back.
Martin showed the following video and then made the point that at any restaurant or event we attend, we should specifically ask for Fairtrade coffee.
http://www.youtube.com/v/jEVozJa13poI tried this yesterday when I was in Luigi Malone’s in Cork and there was no Fairtrade coffee available. I subsequently contacted Don, the owner and suggested he add a Fairtrade coffee option to the menu.
Luigi’s is the venue for the Cork OpenCoffee Club – it would be great to see a Fairtrade option at the next OpenCoffee.
I know that if I had the option, I’d choose a Fairtrade coffee. Would you?
I am lucky enough to be on a campus that has Fairtrade-only as a policy; and also, I buy my own stash accordingly. However, I’ve noticed that quite a lot of cafés, suppliers etc have a relatively limited approach – e.g. they offer four flavours of coffee and then just ‘Fairtrade’ as a fifth option (without reference to flavour) or they offer fairtrade for black coffee but are unsure what is used for the espresso-based drinks! So yes, I do too, but find that it’s easier to do so when there’s a slightly higher-level decision (like campus-wide); I believe M&S are moving towards ‘everything being Fairtrade’ at least in tea/coffee.
Pester-power, especially for events like OpenCoffee, is remarkably effective though! It’s similar to how vegetarian options have expanded here, or how kosher-options are ubiquitous in many parts of the US and Canada.
Daithà – good to hear M&S may be going to ‘everything being Fairtrade’. Currently I but my coffee in Tesco and they generally have Fairtrade options – even for ground decaf (I like a blend of caf and decaf)!
It’ll be interesting to see if we can make this fly for Luigi’s, or find another venue which has a Fairtrade option, if not.
Apparently they have by now converted all tea/coffee ranges to Fairtrade although there may be some older stock still selling. They are now on to other products.