Changing the world one banana at a time

16 September 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, Growers, Samoa

A little background piece on how, working with WIBDI and Oxfam New Zealand, we brought the Samoan Organic Dried Bananas to New Zealand stores (you lucky, lucky people).

You can buy these beauties in Auckland from:

Ripe Deli, The Little Grocer, The Juicery, Kokako cafe at HP Winter Garden

And we’re currently working on stores in Wellington too.

Hang tight Wellingtonians. Soon, soon.

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Samoan sweetness

02 September 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, Samoa

We’ve been working hard with Oxfam New Zealand and Samoa’s Women in Business Development Inc. to bring you these Organic Dried Banana Chunks. By partnering closely with Oxfam & WIBDI, a not-for-profit organisation working with over 250 small-scale farmers growing organically certified Misiluki bananas in Apia, we’ve been able to provide these Samoan farmers with a market for a product that currently has almost no economic value locally.

As well as being good for the growers, there are plenty of documented health benefits for eating organic dried banana chunks.  Misiluki’s being naturally sweeter, means that nothing else needs to be added too. No preservatives, no sugar, no sweetner; just organic, naturally dried bananas.

And they taste YUM.

Launching at the Pacific Showcase (The Cloud, Queen’s Wharf) next week, you can already buy these little beauties from Ripe Deli, The Little Grocer, The Juicery, Harvest Wholefoods (Grey Lynn), Huckleberry Farms (Glen Innes) and from Sat 10th Sept at the Kokako pop-up cafe at HP Winter Garden. All for the lovely little price of around $3 per pack.

Try ‘em, do.

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A week of extremes…

26 August 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, General

Like many of you we’ve been taking part in the Live Below The Line challenge this week. Living on $2.25 was a pretty daunting prospect. It’s an amount that represents the amount that someone living in extreme poverty in New Zealand would have to live on.

Although we only had to make this stretch for food and drink, the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty globally have this equivalent amount to cover everything (health, housing, transport, food, education etc). We also only lived on $2.25 for a week, rather than being an everyday reality.

For us it has just been a (lets face it very comfortable) peep into living below the poverty line, but it has shown us things we’d never (or could have never) even considered about the poverty line before.

Apart from the hunger pains and headaches, we’ve noticed real changes in concentration, mental clarity and even sleep.

To all those who sponsored us, a big thank you. Your donation will be going to the Global Poverty Project one of the five charities working together on this. If you bought a bunch of bananas this week, thank you too. We’re donating 10c for every bunch of bananas sold this week to Live Below the Line.

On the flip side we also attended the TVNZ New Zealand Marketing awards 2011, as we were a finalist for the sustainability marketing award. Supping on water and eating brown rice we were stoked to be announced the winners and took home this hunk of metal.

Choice end to the week really.

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Meet the growers

17 August 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, Growers

Not got a smartphone? Stink! You can still hear our growers' stories directly from them by clicking on the image above.

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Meet the farmer who grew your banana

03 August 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, General, Growers

Those lucky punters at the Foodshow not only got to sample a whole heap of Fairtrade ‘nana goodies, they also got a sneak peak at a little application us geeks at All Good have been working on with Andrew Wilshire and the guys at Tomorrow.

Now, we get over-excited talking about the BIG difference Fairtrade makes to our growers, but there’s nothing more compelling than hearing directly from the growers themselves. And the best place to hear about it? Why, when you’re instore choosing your fruit course. So we’ve developed instore posters that will be popping up over the next couple of weeks that include this little code below.

You may have seen these little squares appearing in places before and wondered what the heck they were. Well for the uninitiated (*warning geek-speak alert*) these squares can be read by any smartphone with a QR-code reader which converts the squares into hidden content downloaded straight to your phone.

In simple terms?

• Point phone
• Take picture
• Web brower opens up with cool stuff like videos to play with
• You go “ooooooooooh that’s good to know”

Go on have a play now or next time your instore…

Or have a more detailed look at our new growers page here. Choice.

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Going bananas at The Foodshow

03 August 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, General

It was a pretty good turn out for Fairtrade at the Auckland Foodshow this year.

Oxfam had their Oxmart stand showcasing every Fairtrade product imaginable and encouraging people to sign-up to a better deal for farmers. Trade Aid were swamped by people learning (and chomping down) their delicious Fairtrade chocolate.

Meanwhile, the All Good crew got to do what they did best and chatted to people about what a difference spending that extra dollar on All Good ‘nanas makes to our growers.

And bribed people with goodies made with our bananas from Ripe Deli, Kokako, Nice Blocks and Kohu Road.

Kokako tempted people with their banana bread each morning…

Nice Blocks were swamped when they did their sampling on Saturday…

and Kohu Road got people drooling over their ice-cream made with All Good Fairtrade bananas.

We met some super organised people at the event too. Many with shopping trolleys to help carry their purchases, and these guys who brought their own walkie-talkies to the event…

Smart thinking...

Met some little monkeys too.

Nice one Foodshow, nice one.

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Where to buy your All Good Fairtrade bananas

02 August 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, General

Don’t forget that you can use our All Good banana finder to see which stores near you stock All Good Fairtrade bananas. Just type in your address or zoom around the banana finder map under the where to buy tab.

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Meet the farmer who grew your banana (and taste the difference)

15 July 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, General

We launched New Zealand’s first and only Fairtrade bananas at last year’s Foodshow, and at this year’s event (Fri 29th – Sat 31st July) we want to introduce you to the people who grow them to show you why a happy farmer produces a banana with better taste.

We’re giving our growers in El Guabo, Ecuador a chance to speak directly to New Zealanders in order to explain, just how your small buying decisions can add up to a life-changing difference to them. Now it’s a long way from Ecuador, and besides, our farmers are busy a-growing and a-harvesting. So we’ve invested in some technology to help you get a better understanding of who our growers are, and the huge benefit choosing All Good Fairtrade bananas makes to their farms, families, communities and lives.

At this year’s Auckland Food Show, we’ll be demonstrating our smartphone application which will give shoppers the chance to hear directly from the growers, the changes Fairtrade has made to their farms, heck you’ll even be able to see exactly where their farms are.

They’ll be scrummy food to try too. You’ll be able to get some of our ‘nanas (natch), but we’ll also be sampling some of the great tasting produce that’s made them. Over the three days of the show, we’ll be giving you the chance to sample banana-based wares from our partners Ripe Deli, Kokako, Nice Blocks and Kohu Road.

Have a look at our page on The Food Show site to see what deals will be on offer, there’s even a handy map to see where our stand is (#372).

See you there.

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Dish mag’s Banana, Chocolate & Hazelnut Loaf

30 June 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, Recipes

Delic-dish-ness

Here it is… the most delicious Banana loaf recipe ever dreamt-up courtesy of Dish mag’s Food Editor, Claire Aldous.

We recommend scoffing this down warm from the oven…

maybe with some ice-cream or yoghurt if that tickles your fancy.

x

INGREDIENTS:

• 150 grams butter, soft but not melted
• 1 1/4 cups Fairtrade sugar
• 3 free-range eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup sour cream or yoghurt
• 1 cup mashed, very ripe, All Good Fairtrade bananas
• 2 cups self-raising flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda, sifted
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
• 70 grams hazelnuts, roasted and finely ground
• 150 grams Fairtrade dark chocolate, roughly chopped

METHOD:

Grease an 8 cup capacity loaf or cake tin and fully line with baking paper.

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.

Whisk the eggs and sour cream in a jug and gradually beat into the butter mixture then beat in the bananas.

Combine all the remaining ingredients and using a large metal spoon, gently but thoroughly fold into the batter. Make sure there are no pockets of flour in the batter.

Spoon into the tin and smooth the top.

Bake for 45-50 minutes until the cake is firm and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Cover the top loosely with aluminium foil if it starts to get too brown.

Leave to cool in the tin then dust with icing sugar before serving.

(serves 10-12).

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Harriet Lamb round-up

27 June 2011 | Posted by julia in All Good News, Banana lovers, General

Wooo-whheeeee what a week last week was. The awesomely inspiring Harriet Lamb arrived in New Zealand on Monday and powered through a schedule that would make a marathon runner’s feet bleed. All conducted with a smile and infectious enthusiasm, her passion for Fairtrade is incredibly evident. But don’t just take our word for it…

We’ve collected a number of last week’s key events for you to peruse, view, listen and share.

Monday started with an interview on TVNZ’s breakfast show with Petra, which you can watch here.

Harriet & Petra

After more interviews and meetings a-plenty, Sarin from 95bfm chatted with Harriet over lunch. The interview is well worth a listen, which you can do here.

One of Monday’s many events was an afternoon tea at Main Course with Dish magazine. Claire Aldous from Dish magazine whipped up a super-yummy Fairtrade choc & banana cake, whilst Harriet Lamb spoke about her experiences with the Fairtrade banana market in the UK.

Fairtrade Choc & Banana Cake mmmh

One of the best pieces we saw over the week was the article and interview with TV3 for Nightline. It details just where the extra dollar goes. If you haven’t watched it yet, then you can here.

Then it was onto Dunedin & Wellington to meet and chat with Fairtrade supporters there, back in time for Good magazine’s cocktail event and lastly the panel discussion chaired by Bomber Bradbury with Barry Coates from Oxfam and our very own Chris Morrison.

(L-R: Chris Morrison, Barry Coates, Harriet Lamb, Bomber Bradbury)

All in all, a massive week for Fairtrade ‘nanas.

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