Shoppers hop on The Fairtrade Smoothie Bike at Swan Walk

All ages took turns to pedal the human powered liquidiser to make smoothies from fruit donated by the local supermarkets, Sainsbury’s, Tescos, and The Cooperative.

By introducing this year’s message, “The Power of You” in a fun and novel way before engaging with the shoppers with the main message, that choosing Fairtrade goods in their shops provides a real benefit to the worlds poorest producers.

We used examples of lives being improved and saved by the Fairtrade social premium given to communities for them to decide how best to improve their society, whether it was a new water well, schooling, an ambulance, or even a motorbike for the local farmer’s representative to get to the meetings and negotiate a doubling of the income of the villiage. All made possible by “the power of you” to choose Fairtrade products.

Meanwhile The Carbon Cafe in Swan Walk was busy distributing further information about Fairtrade as well as how to reduce your home’s energy use.

Sainsbury’s displayed a large range of their Fairtrade products in the Carbon Cafe including Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, fruit and flowers. A huge range of fairtrade products are now available including many which surprised me, Gold wedding rings, cotton T shirts, underwear, footballs, garden tools.

Fairtrade Horsham is a non profit making organisation which promotes the expansion of Fairtrade throughout the district.

Horsham has been a fairtrade town for nearly 10 years in which time nearly all the churches and local organisations have registered their support for Fairtrade.

All the main Food shops, cafes, and restuarants offer a choice of fairtrade refreshments and food. Several schools have proudly achieved fairtrade status. It makes sense to support Fairtrade which provides such a benefit to world health and all it takes is to select products withe the Fairtrade symbol. More information about Fairtrade Horsham can be found on www.fairtradehorsham.org.uk or contact [email protected]

The Fairtrade Foundatiis an independent non-profit registered charity that licenses use of the FAIRTRADE Mark on products in the UK.

Our hundreds of Fairtrade towns, faith groups, schools and committed supporters are vital in helping us realise our vision of fair trade

Fair trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogue, transparency and respect that seeks greater equity in international trade.

It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalised producers and workers – especially in the South.

The Foundation was established in 1992 by CAFOD, Christian Aid, Oxfam, Traidcraft, the World Development Movement, and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes. Member organisations now also include Banana Link, Methodist Relief and Development Fund, National Campaigner Committee, Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign, People & Planet, Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund, Shared Interest Foundation, Soroptimist International , Tearfund and Commitment to Life / United Reformed Church.

The Foundation is the UK member of Fairtrade International, which unites over 20 labelling initiatives across Europe, Japan, North America, Mexico and Australia/New Zealand as well as networks of producer organisations from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.

See http://www.fairtrade.org.uk/en/what-is-fairtrade/who-we-are

The smoothie bike is available to rent from Horsham District Council Wellbeing with further information from http://horsham.westsussexwellbeing.org.uk/topics/healthy-eating/smoothie-bike

Report and pictures contributed by John Cooper.