Honey, it’s Fairtrade!Our hot daily pick

Try sweetening your tea the natural and Fairtrade way with a spoonful of honey that can benefit indigenous communities in Chile. Isn’t that sweet? Eleni Sardi is swapping for Fairtrade Fortnight.

Honey seems to be everyone’s favourite remedy for sore throats and general well-being but it’s also well-loved in cakes and sweets and of course in dressings and glazing. If you love honey very much too, why not swap your jar for a Fairtrade one?

We found this non-organic Chilean Ulmo Blossom Honey that comes from a small community of indigenous people in Chile and their cooperative Campesina Apicola Valdivia. About 100 families that mainly belong to the people of Mapuche have been working for the beekeeping project and are earning a wage that’s fair thanks to Equal Exchange. The company is dedicated to the promotion of Fairtrade and organic production methods respecting the farmers and the environment.

The origins of Equal Exchange go back to 1979 when three voluntary workers returned to Edinburgh after working on aid projects in various parts of Africa. Along with a sister organisation in London, Campaign Co-op, they started buying instant coffee from Bukoba on in Tanzania, which became known as project Campaign Coffee.

The volunteers believed that aid to farmers in poor countries was not the only answer but that instead direct, fairer trading could help redress the balance. They still believe that the alternative trade movement is about creating a set of conditions in which producers of all kinds of products can earn a fair reward for their labour, in an environmentally sustainable, ecologically sensitive way.

Find out where to buy this product on Equal Exchange’s website.