Grey Lynn by night

22 March 2011 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers

If you’re near the Grey Lynn area this Thursday, then definitely make sure you take a stroll or cycle down to the West Lynn Street Party & Twilight market.

You’ll be able to grab a drink, sample some tasty food and soak up the music and atmosphere. Judging by the video from last year, you’ll be in for family, fun-filled treat.

Oh and make sure you swing by the Fairtrade stall to say hi and pick up a few of our bananas.

More details about the event here.

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We’re right behind the Free Store!

23 February 2011 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers

The Free Store Waitakere opened last week to a raft of media and some political debate. The store, based on a very successful concept tested in Wellington last year, is located at 398 Great North Road, Henderson. It will be open from 14 Feb to 11 March – collecting left over food from businesses throughout the City and dishing it out to those in need in the local community.

Judging by the line outside the store on the first day – over 200 people – there is a lot of need.

To concept has 2 main objectives. Recycling the waste stream of food from businesses that is perfectly good for eating but may not be picture perfect for sale (a few blemishes, upside down labels, one day old but still yummy etc). Then providing a judgement free avenue to redistribute this food to people in the local community – much like a food bank. The store is set up by Auckland City Council, run by volunteers and the food is all donated by local businesses – like us!

Thanks to all the businesses that are sending food this month and supporting the Free Store. We think it’s a great initiative and we’re really proud to be supporting it!

This is one of the articles debating some of the issues on Campbell Live with a cameo from our bananas…great to see them going to a good home!

Check out some pictures of the Free Store opening day on our facebook page.

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Thanks to you it’s All Good in El Guabo!

14 January 2011 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers

We wanted to send a huge shout out to you all!

Whether you helped to campaign to get Fairtrade bananas into New Zealand; asked your local produce manager to stock us; are selling us in your store; or have a bunch of All Goods in your fruit bowl right now… Thanks to you it’s All Good in El Guabo!

Give yourselves a big pat on the back.

You’ve helped 430 family farms in El Guabo to earn a fair price for their crop. And on top of that, Kiwis have contributed almost $50,000 (NZD) in Fairtrade premium funding to the El Guabo community since the bananas went on sale here in February.

The Fairtrade Premium we’ve been able to deliver is supporting 17 schools, 900 children, a special needs school and a medical centre – amongst many other wonderful projects.

In addition to the premium, the Fairtrade minimum price ensures farmers get paid a fair price for their crops, it also ensures they can pay workers fairly.

The flow on effects of the minimum price have had significant benefits for the farmers in the El Guabo cooperation. Prior to Fairtrade, farmers had little security or stability in terms of price or volume because they sold their bananas to intermediary buyers for whatever price they were offered. Sometimes they would get good prices, say US$6 or US$7 a box, but then prices would fall as low as US$0.80 to US$1 a box. A minimum price ensures farmers have been able to invest in better ways of farming, organic and sustainable farming methods, better systems for growing, transporting and harvesting bananas.

Thanks for supporting All Good and helping to make Fairtrade bananas a regular feature in our shopping trolleys. Together we can make a big difference and continue to have a direct impact on the lives of our friends and their families in El Guabo into 2011!

Good Onya New Zealand!

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Rose’s adventures in El Guabo

25 November 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers

The lovely Rose Morrison, Chris’s daughter, was over on a volunteering mission in Peru earlier this month. While there she took the time to pop over the border to visit our friends in El Guabo.

She was greeted to a heroes welcome in El Guabo when everyone found out she was part of Chris’s family. And also related to ‘king kong’ or Graeme the Gorilla (as we call him –the All Good mascot) who visited with Simon and Matt earlier in the year.

Rose spent 3 days in El Guabo visiting the farms, meeting the farmers and checking out the All Good Banana harvest. She even got to sit in on the launch of some cool education packs that have been developed with our Fairtrade premium funding.

The highlights –being there to check out the arrival of the new taping machine that will be wrapping up our little beauties… and eating bananas for breakfast, lunch and dinner! The lowlight – having to leave El Guabo and the 10-hour trip back across the Peruvian border.

Rose captured some amazing images of her trip – giving us a glimpse of the wonderful world of our Fairtrade bananas from the palms to packing up for their journey to Aotearoa.

We’ve broken it up into bite-sized chunks for you… more adventures to follow.

Check out the full album on our Facebook page.

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World’s best Fairtrade banana bread hits the shelves

03 November 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers

New Zealand’s first Fairtrade banana bread is hitting the shelves this week, expertly created by the amazing bakers at Kokako. Following official tastings, we can safely confirm that it is the very best Fairtrade banana bread in the world.*

The delicious loaf is packed full of All Good Fairtrade bananas, handmade with love and care by Kokako’s chefs in their Auckland kitchen. For extra virtuousness and yumminess it also contains Fairtrade sugar and organic spelt flour and pure Vanilla extract. The loaves are available in two sizes – a 900g family loaf and a 140g single serve.

“We have been making this recipe of banana bread for years and it is a very popular at Kokako Cafe. When All Good released Fairtrade Bananas into the NZ market we jumped at the chance to use them in our recipe to create a good honest banana loaf made from quality ethically sourced ingredients” says Kokako’s Mike Murphy.

Kokako Fairtrade Banana Bread with All Good Bananas is on sale at Farro Fresh and Naturally Organic in Auckland. But once the word spreads on how amazing it really is, we think it will go global.

Get in quick to get a bite of the action!

Visit www.kokako.co.nz for stockist details or follow them on twitter.com/kokakoorganic.

*Independently tested by a panel of judges made up mainly of the team at All Good Bananas, which may be a little bias but we certainly unanimously agreed it was the world’s best ever Fairtrade banana bread… so it must be. And it means that 430 small scale banana farmers in El Guabo are benefiting directly from every bite – which has to make it a pretty cracking loaf!

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Good onya!

01 October 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers

We thought it was high time we updated you all on how things are going on the Fairtrade banana crusade.

In the last few months All Good bananas have flown out the door. The message is getting out… more stores are coming on board… sales of Fairtrade bananas are on the up! The last few Friday’s we have had some of our biggest weekend orders yet. Since we launched in February, Kiwis have munched through almost half a million kgs of Fairtrade bananas!

Thank you for making this possible. We really appreciate all our supporters who have actively campaigned to help get us into their local stores. You’re efforts have made a huge difference. We’re humbled by the passion and conviction from Fairtrade banana lovers all over New Zealand.

A huge thanks to all the stores and produce managers who are stocking our bananas. There are some fantastic produce managers supporting us up and down the country.

But we still have a long way to go. Some stores still don’t believe their customers are interested or willing to buy Fairtrade bananas and there’s still a whole lot more we can do to help our friends who grow them in El Guabo

So, please keep on supporting the cause. If stores continue to see people asking for and thanking them for stocking Fairtrade bananas, we can keep the momentum.

Your ongoing support is helping to ensure Kiwis play a part in creating a better future for bananas growers in El Guabo! Good Onya New Zealand!

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It’s The Good Life – Fairtrade Banana Baking

09 September 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers, Recipes

Most cool cafes will have Fairtrade coffee but some really cool ones are switching to Fairtrade bananas too!

We’re really excited that Lettie & James at the Good Life Cafe in Christchurch are now ordering a weekly dose of All Good Bananas for their baking and smoothies. They’ve even shared two of their special recipes with us – check them out below. Lettie says, lots of people have been commenting on how they can taste the difference with their smoothies!

In Auckland, Kokako Cafes in Parnell and Auckland’s CBD make delicious Fairtrade bananas bread. And the wonderful Delish Cupcakes in Auckland, with their newly opened store in Forrest Hill on the North Shore, are also now making some yummy Fairtrade bananas cupcakes with chocolate. Baking with All Good Bananas is the shizz!

The Good Life’s Fairtrade Banana & Green Ginger Muffins

1/4 cup sugar
100g Butter
4 bananas mashed (All Good Bananas of course!)
2 eggs
1/4 cup diced crushed fresh ginger (organic if poss)
2 cups self raising flour

Preheat your oven and grease your muffin tin.
(Bake at 180 for 20 – 25 mins)

Blend the softened butter with the sugar and then add the eggs.
Stir in the remaining wet ingredients.
Fold the flour into the mixture.
Spoon into muffin tin.

Sprinkle equal parts of Garam Masala and Sugar over the top of the muffins and bake.

These are our best selling muffins made even more delicious now with our All good Bananas!

Best ever Good Life Fairtrade bananas smoothies

Lettie says, “our Banana Smoothies made to mums recipe are flying out the door now that the weather is getting better….”

1 cup milk
2 scoops ice cream
1 tsp honey
2 ice cubes
1 All Good Banana

Blend well and serve…..

Thanks to James & Lettie from the Good Life Cafe for sharing!

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Yes it’s ‘Just Bananas’!

02 August 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers

We spent the last four days with over 40,000 food lovers at the Auckland Food Show. It was a fantastic event and we met heaps of people who were passionate about Fairtrade. Lots of people promised to rush home and swap to Fairtrade bananas next time they did their shopping!

Our show-stopper party trick was our yummy banana icecream. Frozen bananas chucked in the champion juicer and blended up into delicious bananaices… our catch phrase of the show ‘yes, it’s just bananas’! But obviously can only be made with Fairtrade bananas. People couldn’t believe that something so yum could be so healthy too.

We also had some delicious Giapo Fairtrade organic banana sorbet for people to taste test during the show as a special treat. Everyone loved it!

Thanks to everyone that came and visited us on our stand and to FTANZ and Kokako Organic for being such cool roomies. Sam’s coffees and the Kokako chocolate brownie got us through the day as did the amazing creations from Rosa and the team at the Nosh stand across from us.

Check out all the photos on our Facebook page.

James, aka banana man, juggles bananas. He's so quick you can't see them.

Chris as Banana Man

The Champion Juicer in action.

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Sharing the love

16 July 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers, Growers

Yesterday Oxfam sent an email asking their supporters to help save the Fairtrade banana. A few people have asked if Fairtrade banana’s are in danger of disappearing from NZ stores. The answer is no – not if we can demonstrate that enough kiwi shops and consumers want them.

We’re getting great support from everyone buying All Good Fairtrade bananas and all the stores that stock and promote them and we’re incredibly grateful for that. We want to celebrate this.

But we do need to sell more to show the stores that don’t stock them it’s worthwhile for everyone to get behind Fairtrade. And, although we are getting great support we still aren’t quite selling all the bananas we get from our growers in El Guabo each week. The catch is that we reckon if we were in a few more stores we would.

So, if you want to help the best way is to accentuate the positive. Tell those stores that do sell All Good Fairtrade bananas how much you appreciate being able to buy from them and tell those that don’t stock them how much you’d appreciate them if they did.

Here are a few of the stores that are backing Fairtrade bananas and the people who grow them. If you want to find out where you can buy All Good bananas click here.

Dad, Abel Ugarte, Mom, Elizabeth Urdiales sons Abel Alberto and Axel Andres and baby Eimy Elizabeth all live on the family farm in El Guabo where Abel and Elizabeth grow the bananas you can buy from Commonsense Organics in Wellington.

We took this photo to show how much they appreciate the support of stores like Commonsense and the people who buy our bananas from them.

Angel Iniguez and his daughter Daniella.

This is Angel’s family farm in Tenguel, El Guabo. You’ll find his bananas in the New World stores that have got behind Fairtrade. A big thankyou to New World from Angel and Daniella.

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Banana lovers and nudity

25 June 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News, Banana lovers, General

Fabulous to see all the banana lovers at Acumen this morning who’ve brightened a rainy Auckland morning testing our Fairtrade bananas. The verdict; yummmmy. That’s the taste of justice. Thanks Gemma and Carrie and all the crew.

From next Monday All Good Bananas will be going nude all over the country. Our friends in Wellington have already been able to buy our bananas without plastic bags and now everyone else can enjoy the new (almost) nude packaging. Each bunch has a tape holding them snuggly together – just like the picture.

Have a great weekend and keep an eye for All Good Fairtrade Bananas at your local store.

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