Bulletin
ALEX URBAN INTERVIEW
TRAIDCRAFT DECAF COFFEE
T R A N S PA R E N C Y
T R A I D C R A F T S H O P. C O . U K
EASTER COMPETITION
Welcome
Dear Friends,
Lent is a season of preparation. The first quarter of 2019 has certainly been a hectic time of preparation here at Traidcraft. We have sought to restructure the business and reconnect with supply chains and customers, to put in place the foundation stones for the next 40 years of Traidcraft’s mission. The support and encouragement you have shown us as a team has really kept us going, thank you. The culmination of this period has to be the launch of the Spring Summer Catalogue, which I hope you will agree is a tremendous effort by the team.
Jim will deal with all things finance at Traidcraft.
I hope as you tuck into your chocolate treats (see
Catalogue Drop
page 18-21) this year, you will look forward with
Our Spring / Summer Catalogue is now available!
us to a summer of celebration. We have confirmed
If you’d like to have a flick through hundreds of fair
that we will be attending Greenbelt this summer,
trade groceries, crafts and Easter goodies, and haven’t
reintroducing Traidcraft Week (third week of June,)
received a catalogue through your door yet, you can
and hoping to host a celebration event
request a catalogue here: www.traidcraftshop.co.uk/
at Newcastle Cathedral (date to be confirmed).
request-a-catalogue
If you are attending Greenbelt and would like
And of course, you can order up to 10 for free per
to volunteer to staff our stand for part of the
account for family, friends and customers.
At the end of Lent is the celebration that is Easter.
weekend, please contact me directly. I would also like to hear from anyone professionally experienced in writing resources for churches who would like to help with the Triadcraft Week Church Pack. Please email me. matt.oliver@traidcraft.co.uk
Thanks again and as ever, happy fair trading. Matt 2
Introducing Jim
Traidcraft Then & Now
At the end of last year, I was at a surprise farewell to one of our longest serving members of the team. The room was full of people who had worked with Joe and it was not long before stories and experiences were being shared and people were being remembered. The overwhelming feeling I had from the meeting was the sense of family that exists for people who love Traidcraft.
Below are a few photos we have found in the archives. Hope that they bring you some inspiration.
As Traidcraft reaches our Ruby anniversary, we would love to hear your Traidcraft story. How did you get started, what has been your favourite product and who inspired you? Tell us your fair trading successes and maybe share a humorous anecdote of when maybe things did not go as planned. We would also like you to send through your pictures and videos. We will publish a selection of your stories and pictures in the next few bulletins and possibly online, so you will have to be happy for them to be public. Please send your story to hello@traidcraft.co.uk. Matt
Easter Competition
Easter 2019 has seen the launch of our biggest and best Easter range yet, with plenty of Fairtrade, vegan friendly and plastic free eggs for adults and children to choose from! To celebrate, we’ve rounded up our favourite Easter eggs and bundled them up into one deliciously chocolatey and irresistible hamper. Win three large Easter eggs, an egg box filled with six delicious, Fairtrade chocolate eggs and a selection of three packs of flavourful mini eggs. For a chance of winning, head over to our website for more info and those all-important T&Cs.
Win, w!in, win
Fancy your chances? ENTER OUR EASTER COMPETITION >
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Alex Urban Interview
Alex meeting producers of our Eat Your Hat single origin Ugandan coffee
It’s safe to say that we’re a nation of coffee lovers. Coffee is the world’s second most traded commodity after oil, and almost 100 million cups of coffee are consumed per day in the UK alone, with 80% of people visiting a coffee shop at least once a week. But how much do we actually know about what goes into the selection of the coffees we know, love and consume on a daily basis? Here to talk all things coffee is Traidcraft’s very own Coffee Consultant, Alex Urban. With years of coffee tasting under her belt and now the highly-regarded Q Arabica Grader status to her name, what Alex doesn’t know about coffee isn’t worth knowing! We grabbed her for a quick chat about everything from how she first started out in the coffee cupping business, to her most memorable cup of coffee. 4
Can you explain a little about what a coffee cupper is? A coffee cupper is a coffee taster, i.e. a person that tastes, analyses and evaluates the aroma, taste and the tactile perception (the mouthfeel and the flavour of a cup of coffee). A cupper gives scores for uniformity, clean cup and sweetness, and deducts points if there is a fault or taint, i.e. a defect in one of the cups. Normally five cups of the same coffee are prepared in order to do a cupping and to be able to score uniformity - beans are weighed and ground separately in order to be able to evaluate the uniformity. If there is one sour bean, we want to taste it only in one cup, not in all of the cups.
There are only 83 people in the UK with a Q Arabica Grader qualification.
How did you get into the business of coffee tasting? During my years at Uni I worked as a waitress in a wine restaurant; that’s where I first came into contact with wine and wine tastings. I discovered, for example, how different Riesling from different regions in Germany may taste, due to different influences. Whilst working in the wine restaurant, I had to prepare my first coffees with an Italian espresso machine – this was where I gained my very first experiences in coffee preparation. Already having this background, I started working in the coffee supply chain as a product manager, e.g. purchasing green coffee, and I quickly noticed that much of what is true for wine is also true for coffee. I completed my first coffee sommelière training about seven years ago, where my training focused particularly on green coffee grading/evaluations and sensory skills in the course over the last years. The last one being the Q Arabica Grader course, which I passed recently. As well as this, I am an Authorized SCA Trainer for Green Coffee and Sensory Skills (SCA = Specialty Coffee Association). I have also learned more about coffee preparations and completed Barista training courses: in order to evaluate a coffee, it is important to be able to prepare it properly.
Alex during her exams.
‘We spent six days in a lab for up to 10 hours a day.’
What are your day to day tasks as a Q Arabica Grader coffee taster? I don’t know yet, it’s only my second week.
How many exams have you had to take to achieve your highly-regarded Q Arabica Grader status? 19. All of the exams were in a coffee school and laboratory in central Edinburgh. The lab had all windows covered with paper and taped so that no sunlight could come in. During the sensory exams, it was completed illuminated in red light (so that we could focus only on the flavour of the cup and would not be detracted by our vision). We spent six days in this lab for the “Q course”, up to 10 hours daily, the last three full days being our exams – it was a pretty intense exam! So many cups of coffee were drank and the last afternoon I caught myself thinking, “I am not going to drink any coffee anymore”. 5
Coffee farmers at a Ugandan coop preparing coffee.
How many people have your Q Arabica Grader qualification? In the UK 83, in Germany 23, in the entire world around 4,000-5,000.
What sort of tasks do you have to complete in your exams? We had to grade green and roasted coffee, i.e. find and count the defects (an imperfection of a bean, which could be breaks, chips, insect damage or foreign matter which has an impact on cup quality), as well as matching pairs of acids in coffee and aromas and know their names. Of course, we had to cup a lot of coffee; in the exams we had four tables with six coffees - one table with coffees from Asia, one with naturally processed coffees, one with coffees from Africa and one with so 6
called ‘milds’ i.e. coffees from Latin America. It’s then five cups per coffee which have to be scored and evaluated for its body, sweetness, acidity, uniformity, clean cup… and taints and faults. We, as a group of future Q Arabica Graders, were supposed to score the coffees as similar as possible, as all Q Arabica Graders around the world are meant to evaluate coffees pretty much equally. We spent the first three days of the course calibrating ourselves; being calibrated is therefore crucial in order to pass the exams. Our group was extremely calibrated and good!
How do you differentiate a good coffee from a bad one? A good coffee for me is a coffee where everybody involved in the supply chain has done his/ her best, starting with the farmers, farm management, harvesting, processing, storing, transport, roasting and preparation of the coffee to name some of the steps. Good coffee for me also means organic, fair and has direct trade and transparency along the supply chain. A good coffee of course means also good quality, i.e. the taste.
What is your most memorable cup of coffee? When I was visiting a coop, United Organic Coffee Growers, located at Mount Elgon, close to Mbale in Northern Uganda, I was offered a cup of coffee and without thinking, I said yes. It took about an hour and 10 people at least to prepare the coffee: they collected the green coffee beans still drying in the sun, while resting in parchment (a skin layer which is removed before the coffee is exported), they hulled the coffee manually (hulling = removing the parchment), hand sorted the coffee (removing defects), roasted the coffee manually on a camping gas stove, grinded the coffee manually with the biggest mortar I have ever seen, prepared it as a pour over coffee i.e. they just pour boiling water into a cup with ground coffee and served it in a cup with little hearts on it. Drinking this coffee looking at the mountains, the coffee gardens and being amongst the very kind, humble and proud coffee farmers who had a cup as well, was definitely the most memorable cup of coffee.
‘It took about an hour and 10 people to prepare the coffee.’
Do you have a favourite coffee? In general: A coffee that’s fair, organic and of high premium/specialty quality and was traded directly. I particularly like Bolivian coffees and naturally processed coffees from Ethiopia a lot but I am not limiting myself to only one particular origin, processing method or type of coffee. It always depends what I like best in a specific situation, time of the day and mood. Of course, an “interesting” cup is always something that I favour, so I’d always prefer to drink a less common coffee or origin, or something I haven’t tried before.
So, the next time you’re pouring yourself a cup of fairtrade coffee, you can sit back and rest assured that it has Alex’s expert seal of approval!
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Traidcraft Decaf Coffee From Source to Sip If your first thought upon waking up is ‘I need a coffee’, trust us, you’re not alone. Over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed around the world every day, making it the third most popular drink across the globe, after water and tea. Coffee is naturally bursting with antioxidants and health benefits, but not everyone can or want to drink regular coffee. Many people are caffeine-sensitive, prefer a milder tasting coffee or simply don’t like the effects of a regular coffee, so drinking decaf coffee is a wonderful way to enjoy the rich flavours of coffee without the side effects of caffeine. Drinking decaf in the afternoon can also help you wind down slowly for the evening, ensuring a sound sleep once you’ve slipped under the duvet. So, whether you’re a decaf fan through and through, are required to drink decaf for health reasons or are simply inquisitive as to where Traidcraft decaf coffee has been before it’s poured into your cup, read on to find out everything you need to know about the origins of our best-selling decaf coffee blend.
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Bean There, Done That Our decaf coffee journey takes us to the glorious mountains of South-Western Uganda, to Ankole Coffee Producers Cooperative Union (ACPCU Ltd.). Spanning from the fertile slopes of Bushenyi, to the dramatic heights and sparkling crater lakes of Bunyaruguru, ACPCU is a huge cooperative which specialises in fair trade, organic, speciality coffee, and offers full traceability and a quality handling process – meaning only the very best beans make it into their coffee. The Union was founded by 10 primary cooperative societies in 2006 and has now grown to cover 20 Primary Cooperative Societies with over 10,000 individual farmers to its name! ACPCU has a rich, proud heritage of growing coffee, which dates back generations upon generations of skilled growers.
Unfortunately, due to an ever-growing population putting a strain on the land and natural resources and increasingly extreme weather patterns, coffee growing isn’t as simple as it once was. However, ACPCU are combatting the challenges they face by constantly adapting and diversifying the way they farm; for instance, they are reducing soil erosion by building terraces and planting trees, boosting soil fertility with nitrogen-fixing plants, mulch, homemade compost and animal manure, and promoting biogas to reduce the need for cutting down trees for firewood for cooking. These sorts of important tweaks to the day to day tasks of a grower have enabled ACPCU to grow as a company, where many of their counterparts may have been forced to cease trading.
ACPCU Cooperative Founded 2006 10,000 Farmers 30% Women 70% Men 200 Annual Containers Sold
‘It’s not only the ACPCU members who benefit, but their wider community, too.’ The benefits of being involved with in ACPCU Cooperative are multifold. Members’ financial and certification audits are paid for, they are provided with seedlings and benefit hugely by being paid on delivery. It’s not only the members who benefit, but their wider community, too. For instance, communities involved with ACPCU cooperatives are provided with free medical check-ups at ACPCU clinics, have community bridges, schools, churches and community halls built using the Fairtrade premium and also have bursaries to needy children in higher institutions available. Needless to say, coffee is at the beating heart of this community, and without it, the picture would be significantly bleaker. If you’ve been transported to the Ugandan mountains by reading this piece, just wait until you see what happens when you take your first sip of Traidraft decaf coffee… which will be hitting our shelves this month! Watch this space!
Read more of the stories behind our products on our blog. READ THE TRAIDCRAFT BLOG >
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Update from Robin Dear Friends,
Last month I shared with you the three things that we really care about. Just to recap for you:
SOCIAL JUSTICE We are actively, noisily passionate about equality: gender, sex, religion, opportunity, regardless of background, heritage, experience or inheritance.
E N V I R O N M E N TA L JUSTICE We are increasingly concerned and worried about the killer effects that climate change is having on our partners. We will bring people’s attention to the crisis which will be created if we overstep the UN’s ambition of keeping global warming to less than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
TRADE JUSTICE We are painfully aware that 40 years of fair trade has not done enough to counter the incredible power imbalances in international trade. We are passionate about economic justice and believe that transparency is key in achieving this.
These are enormous themes. They are not always easy to understand and sometimes the lofty ambition can get lost in excruciating detail. Today will be an introduction of sorts to the reality of being transparent.
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Let’s begin with Transparency. When I first stated that Traidcraft was going to become more and more transparent I focused on the question of price. Most people do. In fact, when people think about “Fairtrade” they immediately connect it to a fair price, and they assume that the one equals the other.
And just so that you are not disappointed we will start publishing our coffee contracts online later this month. I will let you know more in the May bulletin and help explain what “$ per US pound” really means, as this is how all international coffee contracts are priced. We will break down the price we pay to producers and compare it with how much we charge customers. It’s illuminating, and you will become coffee experts. However, real justice in trade is not so much about what you pay, but how you are treated and how you treat others. For 40 years, Traidcraft
‘However, real justice in trade is not so much about what you pay, but how you are treated and how you treat others.’
has pre-financed goods that we buy from the developing world without charging interest, we have not charged late fees when producers have failed to deliver on time, and we have always, even in the darkest times of late last year, honoured all our obligations. We have not always been treated in the same way. For the sake of transparency, I will share with you some really wonderful stories about suppliers and customers who really treated us well in the coming bulletins. You may well be surprised by the names.
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Real Fair Trade in Practice. So, forgive me, if I tell a complex story and ask for your advice. But getting it right is sometimes really hard. For our products to carry the Fairtrade label we need to comply with a lot of quite strict rules. We need to follow the standards set by Fairtrade International (FLO-eV) and to check that we do, we are audited by Fairtrade Certification GmbH (FLO-Cert). If we follow the rules, we may use the Fairtrade label and pay a volume related licence fee to the Fairtrade Foundation in London. In total we pay around €5,600 a year to be audited by FLO-Cert and last year we paid £16,545 a year to the Fairtrade Foundation for using the label. If FLO-Cert thinks we have broken the rules, then we could be decertified and unable to use the Fairtrade label. I told you it might be complicated – but transparency really requires you to open the books.
‘I told you it might be complicated...’
Last year we bought some Fairtrade certified ingredients from a supplier. The supplier was on the waiting list to be audited by FLO-Cert, having previously been audited by the Fairtrade Foundation, so we felt confident buying the ingredients from them and, of course, we paid the agreed Fairtrade price. We used those ingredients in our iced fruit slab cakes. Unbeknown to us, however, the supplier “had let their certification lapse, which Traidcraft failed to notice”, and, as a consequence, the ingredients we had bought were therefore no longer “Fairtrade certified”. Our supplier was actually in the process of applying to
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‘We are passionate about economic justice and believe that transparency is key in achieving this.’ FLO-Cert for an audit, but had missed their document deadline. When we were audited last year this all came to light. An honest mistake? Good faith? Well, rules are rules and transgressions need to be appropriately policed. We have been informed by FLO-Cert that we need to resolve this “major non-compliance”. Our alternatives are: 1. We either pay a fine of €5,000 or 2.
We need to buy the equivalent weight of the original ingredient from another Fairtrade supplier and sell it to a 3rd company who will use it in a non-Fairtrade product.
The logic is that because we have bought non-Fairtrade certified ingredients (albeit at a Fairtrade price), and used them in a product we then applied the Fairtrade label to, we now have to do the exact opposite in order to restore ‘balance’. Our total margin on the slab cakes last year was £4,700. If we do not do either of these, we will be decertified and no longer able to use the Fairtrade label. Somehow, I am not quite sure what all of this has to do with trade justice. I would genuinely love to hear your thoughts on this, and if you want to share them with us please write to me at lovetraidcraft@traidcraft.co.uk. If you are happy for me to share your thoughts in the next bulletin let me know.
At the start I defined our understanding of Trade Justice as follows: We are painfully aware that 40 years of fair trade has not done enough to counter the incredible power imbalances in international trade. We are passionate about economic justice and believe that transparency is key in achieving this. Transparency is messy, but it needs to be honest if it is going to work. And it needs to start at home before we point the finger at others. Do we pay a fine? Do we “do the substitute option”? Or should we take a stand? Please join us in the journey. It’s much more fun together.
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Important Product Updates
The Spring/Summer ‘19 Catalogue is here! We hope you enjoy reading through our Spring/Summer ‘19 Catalogue. As a team, we are proud we got this out to you and love how it looks. You will notice with the launch of this catalogue that we have reduced some RRPs; we want to be competitive with companies selling similar products, and 20% in turn we hope you will buy more from us. 20%
IF UNDELIVERED, OR IF IF UNDELIVERED, OR IF YOU WISH TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM YOU WISH TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM FUTURE MAILINGS, PLEASE FUTURE MAILINGS, PLEASE RETURN TO: CUSTOMER SERVICES, RETURN TO: CUSTOMER 0NE SERVICES, TRAIDCRAFT PLC, KINGSWAY, TRAIDCRAFT PLC, KINGSWAY, GATESHEAD, TYNE AND WEAR NE11 GATESHEAD, TYNE AND WEAR NE11 0NE
New
20% OFF
(offer ends 22 nd May)
(offer ends 22 nd May)
Single bars: WAS £2.39 OFFER £1.91
Single bars: WAS £2.39 OFFER £1.91
OFF
Display boxes: WAS £32.25 OFFER £25.80
20% OFF
New
OFF
OFF
Divine Milk Chocolate
Display boxes: Divine Dark Chocolate Divine Dark Chocoalte WAS £32.25 OFFER £25.80 with Raspberries with Lemon & Juniper Divine Milk Chocolate (90g) 43768 (15 x 90g)Divine Dark Chocoalte 53964 (90g) 53394 (15 x 90g) 49630 with Orange with Lemon & Juniper 60588 (90g) 59728 (15 x 90g) 53964 (90g) 53394 (15 x 90g)
with Orange 60588 (90g) 59728 (15 x 90g)
Divine Dark Chocolate
with Ginger & Orange 32900 (90g) 30018 (15 x 90g)
20%
20% OFF
Divine Dark Chocolate Divine Milk ChocolateDivine Divine Dark Chocolate with Dark Chocolate with Mint with Toffee & Sea Saltwith Ginger Pink Himalayan Salt Divine Milk Chocolate 90g) Dark Chocolate & Orange 38574 (90g) 38350 (15 xDivine (90g) 41128 (15 x 90g) 43724 x 90g) with Toffee with 35962 (90g) 34274 (15 & Sea Salt 32900 (90g) 30018 (15 x 90g) Pink Himalayan Salt 35962 (90g) 34274 (15 x 90g) 43724 (90g) 41128 (15 x 90g)
T R A I D C R A F T S H O P. C O . U K
TRAIDCRAFTSH
O P. C O . U K
Biscuits
Divine Dark Chocolate with Raspberries 49630 (90g) 43768 (15 x 90g)
Spring/ Summer ‘1 9 Spring/Summer ‘1 9
Divine Dark Chocolate with Mint 38574 (90g) 38350 (15 x 90g)
.UK D I S C O V E R M O R E O N L I N E T R A I D C R A F T S H O P. C O
DISCOVER MORE ONLINE TRAIDC RAFTSH
O P. C O . U K
The stem ginger trial ran successfully, so we hope to bring you the Stem Ginger Cookies in April - we are sorry for the delay. The 180g Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies will shortly be transferring to the card box as well.
Penne Pasta Penne pasta is back in the building! We ran out of Traidcraft packaging and the next production of Pasta is not until Autumn this year, so we have bought in different packaging; but it is still the pasta you know and love inside.
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Traidcraft Coffee The coffee beans have been bought and the labels and bags have been printed. However, the first production will be in mid-April; we are proud to be working with Ringtons on all of our coffee as well as tea, and hope to bring this rebranded range to you mid-April.
Traidcraft to Tropical Wholefoods Namaste Craft Products Why have we changed from Traidcraft to Tropical Wholefoods Store cupboard ingredients? Previously, we directly imported bulk raisins and sultanas alongside products sourced by Tropical Wholefoods, which were then packed into our own Traidcraft packaging. The Traidcraft products were/are packed at Tropical Wholefoods. As a business, it made sense for Traidcraft to import these ingredients to support the producers, as we needed these ingredients in our products, including Muesli and GEOBARS - however our product range has reduced. With the threat of ceasing trading, the green Traidcraft packaging was not re-printed, and whilst Traidcraft were fighting for a future, Tropical Wholefoods worked in the background to come up with a solution that would support both companies. The result of this was a simpler generic Tropical Wholefoods bag that we could put the Traidcraft range into. At the moment the range is exclusive to Traidcraft and Tropical Wholefoods. We hope to move the range into compostable packaging.
As you will know, we had to make the hard decision to stop importing craft products. Whilst this was business critical, we were all too aware of the impact that this would have on our producers and we were keen to try and continue to make a positive impact on craft producers. For our Spring/Summer ‘19 Catalogue, we have a small selection of products from Namaste, who are a like-minded company who work with producers all over the world; some of whom were our producers too. They are dedicated to sourcing beautiful fairly traded products and embracing traditional artisan skills. Where possible, their products are made from environmentally friendly, sustainable and recycled materials. We hope in the Autumn that we can bring you a wider selection from a few other select partners too, but for now we hope you love the new Namaste products as much as we do.
We want to work closely with other suppliers who are ethically aligned with us, which is why we are proud to work with Tropical Wholefoods; they are great at what they do. Traidcraft will no longer be importing the sultanas and raisins. We have enough stock at the moment from the last shipment to last us a year, so we will be working closely with Tropical Wholefoods to bring customers the products that they love.
Lizy White and Kirsty Young 15
meet the people tours
Peru Tour Confirmed
Join us in the land of the Incas, with a rich itinerary that explores the diverse culture and natural beauty of Peru! Travelling from Lima into the Andes, we visit fair trade craft producers, stay with their families and experience life in Peru. Alongside visits to Quinoa farmers and the islands of Lake Titicaca, we’ll explore ancient Inca ruins at Pisac, Ollantaytambo and Machu Picchu. An exciting itinerary for this spectacular country! Starting in the capital, we visit Allpa and see their silversmiths at work, before travelling up into the Andes and along the Sacred Valley of the Incas to the famous wonder of the world, Machu Picchu. We visit potters and weavers in the towns and 16
4 TH - 1 5 TH SEPTEMBER 2019
villages around Cusco, before travelling south to Lake Titicaca. On Taquile Island, we visit local communities and in the altiplano surrounding Juliaca we visit a Fairtrade quinoa producers and see Alpaca fleece being spun and knitted into an array of beautiful garments.
For a day by day itinerary or more information about flights, contact Hannah Email: info@skedaddle.com Call: 0191 2651110 Visit: www.meetthepeopletours.co.uk/peru
Traidcraft Exchange Easter Appeal This Easter, you can help the women of Southern Senegal to leave poverty behind for good…
Our Easter Appeal features the inspirational women farmers of Casamance, Southern Senegal. For a sneak preview, and to watch a video of the amazing work being done, go to www.traidcraft.org.uk/senegal. The appeal lands over Easter, so keep an eye out for it in the post if you’re signed up to Traidcraft Exchange’s mailings!
Big Brew Thank You A massive thank you to all our amazing Big Brewers up and down the country! It’s been a busy Fairtrade Fortnight... and we can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for Traidcraft Exchange. From Devon to Newcastle, amazing people like you have come together to celebrate 40 years of the Traidcraft family by raising money to change the future for people exploited by trade. Don’t forget if you haven’t yet sent in your Big Brew donations, you can pay them in online at www.traidcraft.org.uk/bigbrew, or by sending a cheque to our Pink Lane office Traidcraft Exchange, 7-15 Pink Lane, Newcastle, NE1 5DQ, or by calling 0191 497 6445.
As a Fairtrader, you’re a key part of your local community – so if you’d like to share news about the appeal, host a talk or event to support it, or can share updates on social media, please do get in in touch on 0191 497 6445 or email us at hello@traidcraft.org. We would love as many people as possible to hear the amazing stories of women like Ndella, so that we can raise money to reach more communities still in desperate need of support. Meet Ndella. She’s a farmer, mother and cooperative member in Southern Senegal, and thanks to the support of people like you, she’s looking towards a brighter future. With your help, and the help of those in your community, we want to change more lives like Ndella’s through the power of trade. To learn more about her story, and the communities we hope to reach, go to www.traidcraft.org.uk/senegal.
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Fair Trade Easter Egg Review Our Easter 2019 range is our biggest and best yet, with dozens of delicious fair trade Easter eggs and FSC certified greeting cards on offer. If you’ve had even just the smallest of glances at our Easter offering, you’ll see why our faces lit up when we were asked to review this year’s Easter egg range (you don’t have to ask us twice!). Needless to say, we thoroughly enjoyed each and every mouthful, and have rounded up our favourites to whet your appetites!
Divine Milk Chocolate Speckled Easter Eggs The Milk Chocolate Speckled Easter Eggs were one of our ultimate favourites of the mini eggs 18
in our Easter 2019 range. Surprisingly large (for mini eggs) and ridiculously realistic, we’d be hard pushed to pick the chocolate egg out of a line up of real eggs. Taking us back to our childhood days of Easter hunts in the garden, we can confirm that these pretty mini eggs are as tasty as they are aesthetically pleasing. Unlike many other mini eggs on the market, the speckled sugar shells of these eggs are the perfect thickness; thick enough to cause a delicate crunch and add to the overall experience when bitten, but not thick enough to cause your molars to quake in fear. Once cracked, the welcome, concentrated mouthful of smooth, solid Divine milk chocolate filled our mouths and melted away to a molten puddle of chocolate and crunched shell in seconds. Warning: they’re so good, you’ll blink and the pack will be empty.
Divine Dark with Pink Himalayan Salt Chocolate Easter Egg This egg is bold, in a good way. Made from Divine’s signature smooth Fairtrade chocolate, this particular egg embodies Easter with a twist – a pink Himalayan salt twist. It’s made of 70% dark chocolate, so if you’re more of a dark chocolate lover and are hoping to try something a bit different this season, allow us to introduce you. We must admit, as much as we truly enjoyed each bite, the dark chocolate is extremely rich; it’s the sort of treat you probably wouldn’t polish off one evening with a cuppa, but would savour in small, satisfying mouthfuls. Although noticeable within the crunchy texture, the juxtaposing sharp kick of pink Himalayan salt is very subtle at first, then stealthily emerges once the chocolate has melted into your palate. All in all, we loved it. It’s a unique and quirky take on Divine’s familiar dark chocolate – and we reckon at Easter, why not have a bit of fun experimenting with new flavours? No wonder it’s the Vegan Society approved Easter egg on everyone’s lips – literally! “I don’t normally like dark chocolate but I LOVE this. It’s surprisingly creamy for a dark chocolate.” Mozzy, Customer Services
Divine Milk Chocolate Gourmet Popcorn Easter Egg Unlike anything previously on our radar, Divine’s much coveted Milk Chocolate Gourmet Popcorn Egg was first on most people’s lists to try, and it’s no surprise why. As this is the first of its kind, we weren’t sure exactly what to expect, but from the moment we opened the Aladdin’s cave of a box (which is completely plastic free, by the way!), the familiar and warming smell of caramel-esque sweetness hit us and our mouths began to water. The smooth milk chocolate has a faint but justified presence of vanilla, grown by Fairtrade farmers in Madagascar, which brought an extra creamy note and deepened the chocolate’s richness. They do say that you eat with your eyes, which is another reason we’re awarding such accolade to this particular egg – as, like a scene from a jeweller’s window, the shell is encrusted with jewels in the guise of air-popped, gourmet, salted caramel popcorn from award-winning popcorn brand Joe and Seph. The popcorn running through the shell added a welcome lightness - leading to us polishing the whole thing off in record time! Discovering new textures and flavours with each bite, our taste buds were taken on a journey into unchartered territories… it’s the only thing to have plunged our office into silence in years.
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Divine Tangy Orange Milk Chocolate Easter Egg Causing ructions through our office, Divine strike again with their unbelievably tasty, sustainably sourced chocolate Easter eggs. The Tangy Orange Milk Chocolate Easter Egg is lovingly made from the highest quality cocoa, grown by Kuapa Kokoo farmers in Ghana, and is made up of Divine’s signature smooth milk chocolate, with tangy orange oil running through. As soon as we opened the (completely compostable) foil wrapping, the appetising burst of orange prickled its way through the air and transported us to the sunnier climbs of balmy orange groves. The fact that the medium strength orange flavour comes from orange oil and not orange pieces gets a huge thumbs up for us, as it’s just as brimming full of flavour, but is still able to melt smoothly in the mouth. Although mild, the promise of ‘tangy’ orange managed to squeeze its way into our mouths, leaving a subtle but welcome and flavoursome bitter tone.
Divine strike again with their unbelievably tasty, sustainably sourced chocolate Easter eggs.
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Divine Flight of Flavours Milk & White Chocolate Easter Egg Selection Needless to say, this flavourful flight really packs a punch. Containing five different milk and white chocolate flavours, tucked into one compact flight of eggs, we quickly fought off any competition and navigated our way to our favourites. The milk chocolate with toffee and seasalt was a real high point, boasting salty bitterness peppered through super sweet milk chocolate, and the white chocolate with strawberries offered a heavenly, satisfying crunch amidst sumptuous white chocolate. The milk with orange is very similar to the Divine Tangy Orange Milk Chocolate Easter Egg, with tangy bursts of orange oil regularly taking leaps of faith onto our now dizzy taste buds, while the white chocolate egg oozed elegance and maturity from our very first bite. Finally, the 45% high cocoa milk chocolate egg offered something completely different; a smooth, rounded cocoa flavour with unobtrusive hints of vanilla. Almost like ordering a tapas of chocolate in a restaurant (the dream), our unanimous verdict is that we’d love to receive this flight of mini Easter eggs as a wonderful alternative to one single flavoured Easter egg (not that we’d turn down the latter, either!).
The Real Easter Egg Milk Chocolate Ever since it first landed on our shelves, The Real Easter Egg has been our top seller, week in, week out – and we were looking forward to tasting for ourselves exactly why it’s so popular! The Real Easter Egg focuses on the meaning of Easter in the truest Christian sense and includes a 24page booklet with the story of the first Easter, along with some fun activities to keep kids occupied over the entire Easter weekend. It’s also completely plastic and palm oil free, comes in a 100% recyclable box and has a prize competition attached – ticking all of our boxes and more! So, how does it taste? Well, the answer is delicious! The milk chocolate egg is particularly creamy and has a noticeably thicker shell its counterparts. The smooth and subtly buttery chocolate melts almost instantaneously into your mouth, leaving your taste buds satisfied, yet still reaching to break off the next piece… For dark chocolate lovers, there’s also a dark version of The Real Easter Egg.
So, whether you’re giving it as a gift, or simply treating yourself, we hope we’ve given you the mouth-watering Easter egg inspiration you were looking for. Do let us know which are your favourites!
“It is good to be able to give some delicious chocolate as Easter presents, knowing they are Fairtrade and express the true meaning of this important festival.” Tony Whitaker, 5 Star FEEFO Review
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Lizy’s Fair Trade White Chocolate Cheesecake “This cheesecake has a smooth texture with a soft buttery biscuit base which melts in your mouth, with a touch of sweetness from the Muscovado white chocolate.” Rio
Method 1. Crush double chocolate chunk cookies in
a food processor until completely ground. Add butter and blitz again until you have the desired crumbly consistency.
2. Grease and line the base of a 23cm deep, Ingredients
300g double chocolate chunk cookies 150g unsalted butter, melted, plus extra to grease 400g Muscovado white chocolate, broken into pieces 300g full-fat cream cheese 250g mascarpone 300ml double cream 1 x single shot of Baileys (if required) 200g raspberries 50g Eat Your Hat Chocolate (grated) “Astonishingly good cheesecake. It was followed by probably the most creative brainstorming session I have ever experienced at Traidcraft. One day, when the books are written, sociologists and business experts will wonder if there was a link. I can tell them now, that there was. Lizy is a complete star.” Robin
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loose-bottomed cake tin. Add the biscuit mixture to the cake tin and pat it flat. Leave to set in the fridge for approximately half an hour.
3.
Melt 350g of the Muscovado white chocolate in a heatproof glass bowl over a small pan of hot water on a low heat. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking. Remove from the heat and leave to cool for 10 mins until barely warm, but still liquid.
3. Finely grate the remaining 50g of chocolate into the cheesecake mix.
4.
Meanwhile, whisk the cream cheese, mascarpone and remainder of the chocolate (50g) – as well as the shot of Baileys if you wish! Add double cream and keep whisking until the mixture is just holding its own shape. Whisk until just combined.
5.
Spoon the mixture over the cooled and set biscuit base, then smooth the top. Return to the fridge to cool for at least 6 hours, until the topping is set. Finally, grate some Eat Your Hat chocolate decorate with fruit.