Garstang social enterprise steps up to support community campaign to help people in need

North Lancashire’s sustainable food partnership FoodFutures has launched a midwinter campaign to support local food producers whilst simultaneously raising funds for Eggcup’s food justice and community building work.

One of the campaign's featured producers is the FIG Tree, which was set up in Garstang - the world’s first Fair Trade Town - as a social enterprise to promote Fair Trade and support the International Fair Trade Towns movement.

They have a direct link with the cocoa farming community of New Koforidua in Ghana - Africa’s first Fair Trade Town - and have run bean to bar chocolate making workshops, primarily for schools, using cocoa beans sourced from a named farmer in New Koforidua.

After the FIG Tree lost its premises, which included a café and exhibition, they decided to make bean to bar chocolate to sell.

Bruce Crowther, the man behind the FIG Tree, said: “I started as a volunteer with Oxfam in 1984 and as the chair of the Garstang Oxfam Group was responsible for making Garstang the world’s first Fair Trade Town in April 2000.

"This led to the International Fair Trade Towns movement now consisting of over 2000 Fair Trade Towns in over 30 countries worldwide.

"The FIG Tree was established to support this movement. Why do I do what I do? Quite simply because I learnt through Oxfam that a small child dies every three seconds from poverty.

"This is preventable and therefore in my view totally unacceptable.

“We purchase our beans for a fair price directly from the farmers in New Koforidua who are members of the Fairtrade cooperative Kuapa Kokoo.

"Our purpose is to promote these farmers and Fair Trade farmers like them across the globe to help ensure they can obtain a fair price for their produce that covers the cost of production and provides a sustainable livelihood.

"Believe it or not when made correctly chocolate, especially dark chocolate, is healthy. Cocoa provides a vegetable energy source, contains positive fats, more anti-oxidants than red wine or green tea, less than two per cent natural sugars, 15 per cent nutrient fibres, is a source of essential vitamins and minerals and actually prevents tooth decay.

“The FIG Tree also has an exhibition on the three local heritage themes; Fair Trade Towns, the British Atlantic slave trade and its abolition and Quakers.

"The exhibition is currently in storage and is available to exhibit free of cost. As well as linking with New Koforidua, The FIG Tree also has a link with Media PA in the USA - the first Fair Trade Town in the American continents.

"Our Fair Trade Triangular relationship makes up the same three points of the infamous slave trade triangle of the past. We are currently running our Fair Trade Towns - Beirut Bridge of Support Appeal to support the Lebanese Fair Trade Village of Baskinta in providing relief to survivors of the Beirut bomb blast that destroyed the capital city on August 4 this year.”

To learn more about FoodFutures and the midwinter campaign visit here

To learn more about the FIG Tree visit here

Order your FoodFutures Midwinter Hamper online here