This February The Priory Rooms are promoting Fairtrade Fortnight 2015 to our customers, staff, suppliers and the local community, to support and bring about positive change for millions of farmers and workers in developing counties.

Fairtrade Fortnight aims to encourage more shoppers and businesses to choose products that changes lives; reminding everyone of the dramatic difference Fairtrade makes and why it is still needed. 70% of the world’s food is produced by 500 million smallholder farmers yet many of them remain trapped in chronic poverty. Fairtrade ensures farmers across the developing world receive a fairer price for their work, as well as an additional Fairtrade Premium, used by farmers and workers to invest in their communities. The community then decides what the Premium is spent on, whether that’s building a new schools or hospital, or investing in better environmental business practices.

All year round The Priory Rooms provide delegates with Fairtrade refreshments for their meetings and conferences through our supplier Kingdom Coffee. We offer original and flavoured Clipper tea-bags, freshly prepared filtered coffee, sugar sachets and hot chocolate, all to be enjoyed with delicious ethically-sourced Walkers biscuits.

Our neighbours The Peace Hub are running a special campaign all throughout February to highlight the importance of buying Fairtrade. Pop in any weekday between 11:00 and 14:00 to have a friendly chat, relax with a complimentary cuppa and find out how you can take part in a simple action to help make the world a better place! The Peace Hub have partnered with the Carrs Lane Fairtrade Shop to stock lots of Fairtrade goods in the Hub to browse & buy.

They are also supporting the Fairtrade Foundations campaign for supermarkets to stock 100% Fairtrade bananas; Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and The Cooperative all do, but Tesco and Asda are lagging behind. Pop in to the Hub to sign their letter to local branches of Tesco and Asda, asking them to switch all their bananas to Fairtrade!

The Peace Hub is the latest project of Central England Quakers, supported by The Priory Room’s profits. Quakers believe that a just and peaceful world is possible if we work together to build local, national and international structures that support peace and justice. The Peace Hub is a centre for everyone who is in sympathy with this call to action: Quakers, the wider peace movement and the general public alike.

You can find out more about Fairtrade Fortnight and how to get involved in your local area at www.fairtrade.org.uk/fortnight

Or through The Peace Hub located on 41 Bull Street, Birmingham, B4 6AF www.peacehub.org.uk