Family-run furniture company, Myakka joined in with the biggest worldwide banana-eating event between 6th and 7th of March to declare their support for fair trade.
With a selection of banana recipes available through www.fairtrade.org.uk, many of the thousands of people participating world-wide had some fun making everything from banana milkshakes to pancakes!
The Myakka team gathered together in the afternoon on the 6th March to eat their fair trade banana’s in support of the fair trade movement. Held annually, this event aims to raise awareness of the importance of considering where our food and products come from, where they are made and whether the people who made them (or picked them!) were paid a fair wage.
“This is just another example of a great event that anyone can easily get involved with to help support and raise more awareness of fair trade,” explains Georgie Hopkins, director of Myakka.
Bananas are the most popular fruit in the world with over £10billion per year being spent on them. They are harvested all year round and ripen best off the plant. Wild banana’s originated in Asia and have been cultivated for over 4,000 years.
There are 57 certified producer groups in ten countries of Latin America, the Caribbean and West Africa supplying fair trade bananas to twenty countries in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. Fair trade minimum prices are calculated to at least cover average local costs of production – this price can be over double what producers would normally receive.
Myakka certainly does its bit for the fair trade movement and experienced record sales in the first six weeks of 2009 almost emptying their warehouse of beautiful fair trade furniture. With more than 10 container loads of fair trade furniture on its way to the UK at the moment to restock their busy warehouse, customers can be assured that their hard earned money will not only benefit themselves through the beautiful furniture, but the artisan producers too.
“The deliveries will be arriving soon and within the next few weeks we’ll be fully restocked on most large furniture items. In the meantime, we still have plenty for customers to buy in-store or online,” says Georgie Hopkins.
Fairtrade bananas were launched in 1994, and now one in four bananas sold in the UK is fair trade. If you are interested to learn more about fair trade or interesting facts about bananas including films and producer case studies visit www.fairtrade.org.uk/gobananas
