Eve hopes that new partnership is the perfect brew
Fair Trade firm adds African coffee to its range
Fair Trade Scotland has launched a partnership with an African coffee producer.
As revealed in the Paisley Daily Express, Eve Broadis, 65, is managing director of Fair Trade Scotland, a social enterprise based in Neilston that aims to find a market for the organisation’s tartan-themed products.
These include a whole range of items, from bamboo straws in a pouch and coin wallets to rucksacks and shopping bags.
Eve imports them from Cambodia, where they are made by local people under Fair Trade’s ethical rules.
And she has now teamed up with Mzuzu Coffee, of Malawi, to bring the product to the market in Scotland.
Eve said: “Using the new World Fair Trade Organisation Guaranteed Fair Trade Label and the Fairtrade Mark, we believe this to be the first product to use both third party, independently audited, schemes that guarantee to the consumer that their purchase really does contribute to sustainable economic development through Authentic Fair Trade.”
The partnership with Mzuzu Coffee was launched as the recent Edinburgh Fairtrade event held during Fairtrade Fortnight.
Mzuzu Coffee describes itself as a “democratic and empowered union of farmers”,
It has 3,000 member farmers and has been growing coffee since the early 1930s.
Mzuzu’s aim is that every smallholder coffee farmer achieves decent accommodation, three good meals a day, decent clothing for the family, including adequate beddings, and education by sending children to schools.
Eve set up Fair Trade Scotland as a limited company in 2006 and eventually established a Fair Trade shop in Greenock, but this closed after three years because it proved not to be sustainable.
“We couldn’t pay ourselves and we were competing with Tesco, basically,” she said. “We had to close the shop.” But Fair Trade’s ideal of people, planet and profit remained close to Eve’s heart.
Now she is hoping the tartanthemed products she imports to sell will take off along with her new coffee venture.
We believe this to be the first product to guarantee to the consumer that their purchase really does contribute to sustainable economic development Eve Broadis