All Good Bananas

All Good news & banana gossip

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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Part 2: Rose’s Adventures in El Guabo

13 December 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News

The lovely Rose Morrison, Chris’s daughter, was over on a volunteering mission in Peru last month and took the time to pop over the border to visit our friends in El Guabo. Check out the first blog post from Rose’s Adventures in El Guabo.

Rose happened to stop in at El Guabo the week they were launching an exciting teaching initiative, funded by the Fairtrade premium.

El Guabo have added a local flavour to the general school curriculum with a series of special education books and teaching resources.

Banana production is one of the main occupations in the El Guabo community so it has a big impact on day-to-day life. Many of the local children will have parents, grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins involved in banana production.

Thanks to funding from the Fairtrade premium the series of resources for teachers in El Guabo helps kids learn national curriculum topics with a local spin.

The books were conceived and written by a local producer, Katty Novillo Armijos. They focus mainly on the environmental aspects of banana production and daily life. Such as protecting the local environment, preventing pollution, preserving local eco-systems and wildlife, and keeping the water clean. They also look at transport, harvesting, family roles and a bunch of other great topics.

The launch of the teaching resources was attended by the author, local teachers and a very special Ecuadorean Government official. The government had heard about the initiative and were so impressed they are thinking of rolling it out to other parts of the country.

Another great example of how the Fairtrade premium is being used to help the local community!

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Wellington tucks into a slice of Fairtrade birthday cake

09 December 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News

Wellington’s new Mayor, Celia Wade-Brown and Councillors tucked into a slice of All Good Fairtrade banana cake today to celebrate the capital’s first year as a fair trade city!

Matt presented Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, Councillor Ray Ahipene-Mercer and Councillor Stephanie Cook (pictured) with the bright yellow All Good Banana cake that he made himself with All Good Bananas and Fairtrade sugar (we were suitably impressed with his yellow icing in the All Good colours!) He also got a chance to speak to the group about the great stuff that’s happening in El Guabo thanks to the support of Wellington shoppers.

It’s very exciting that Wellington has reached its first year as a fair trade city.

“Wellington is the first capital city in the southern hemisphere to achieve fair trade status and this year has literally seen us ‘going bananas’ for fair trade’ said Paul Barber from the Fair Trade City Steering Group.

Wellington shoppers are some of the biggest supporters of fair trade bananas in New Zealand. As well as bananas, there are many more fair trade retail outlets and cafes, and the number of workplaces and community groups that have signed up to show their commitment to fair trade continues to grow. The Council offers fair trade tea and coffee and other national organisations like the BNZ have signed up as fair trade workplaces during the year.

“In a world where news is so often alarming, it’s great to be able to celebrate, especially at Christmas time, some really good news” said Paul Barber.

Dunedin also celebrated it’s first year as a fair trade city on the weekend at the Dunedin Farmers Market. We think it’s high time Auckland got its skates on and became the first Fairtrade super city!

Councillor Ray Ahipene-Mercer, Mayor Celia Wade-Brown & Councillor Stephanie Cook.

Paul Barber from the Make Wellington Fair Trade Group

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All Good News!

01 December 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News

This week we’ve had a bit of a run in the news to boost the profile of All Good! Chris was featured in today’s Dominion Post talking about sustainable values in business. Read the article on stuff.co.nz

Chris was also down in Christchurch this week to visit some of the stores stocking All Good Bananas in the garden city. While he was down there he popped in to Canterbury TV for an interview with Megan Banks on the Good Living programme. Megan was lovely! Watch the interview.

Tonight we’re off to the Sustainable 60 awards run by Unlimited Magazine. We’re a finalist in the marketplace category so we’re just a wee bit excited!

Thanks to Unlimited, the Dom Post and Good Living for helping spread the good word about our special bananas!

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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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Western Springs get creative with Fairtrade

12 November 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News

Students at Western Springs College in Auckland got creative with Fairtrade bananas recently – with pretty cool results!

The kids at the college were learning about Fairtrade and part of the project was to create some compelling posters to get people to understand what it was all about. Their muse – All Good Bananas!

We thought these creations were great. We’ve included a selection of our top pics below.

Our favourite was ‘All Goods Bro’ by Akim. A budding artist in our midst! We sent him an All Good T and some Fairtrade goodies for his stellar efforts.

We thought the slogan ‘I pity the fool who doesn’t buy All Good’ was pretty clever too! Nice to have some Mr T banana messaging in there to get people onto Fairtrade – we’re thinking of it for our next ad campaign!

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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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All Good rider takes line honors at Single Speed World Championships

26 October 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News

All Good sponsored rider P.G-for-Gravity Gardner took line honours as one of the thousand fastest single speed cyclists in the world at the Single Speed World Championship in Rotorua on Saturday.

P.G. claims he fulfilled two lifelong ambitions and faced his worst nightmare a few hours prior to the event. His dream to compete at international championship level and as a sponsored rider was all but lost on the eve of the race while alone in his room at the Capri Motel he found himself naked and weeping in despair, unable to put his race ensemble together.

Gravity’s All Good sponsored masseuse and technical advisor Cosmo Coley failed to turn up at the pre-race briefing and without the wisdom and restraining guidance of his coach and sponsor, good natured Gravity was wide open to the wiles of seasoned international competition. He was plied with unreasonably strong beer and spicy nibbles and charmed by the groupies of the SSWC international circuit. A strategy that was clearly intended to get Gravity off his game.

Hours later Gravity woke up in his motel room, his world in disarray, faced with a dilemma of tragic proportion. Crucial to the SSWC competition is the technical requirement that all cyclists wear either a costume or nothing at all.

Gravity would have to prepare for the race without the supervision of his coach and choose between the electric blue Finnish ice skaters outfit chosen for him by his wife to ‘match his eyes’ or his sponsored banana skin an outfit that had undergone rigorous wind tunnel testing to optimise fit and performance but only matched his eyes on mornings like this one.

An early wake-up call from All Good shook Gravity back to reality. Although he was too ashamed to repeat the exact words we believe their intent was clear; ‘wear the banana or put your entire racing career in jeopardy’.

Gravity donned the banana and jostled his way to the start of the event.

While All Good appeared to be reviewing their sponsorship strategy from the beer tent a Nascar style start severely disadvantaged Gravity’s pole position and put the banana at the back of the bunch.

The massed start saw favourites vying for position in a horde of superheros and freaks. One rider masquerading as a disco, rode hands pumping the air with his head in a mirror ball and his backside augmented by a sound-system blasting Curtis Mayfeild. Four Marilyn Monroe’s wove through the throng at speed, filleting the peloton (one on at tandem with her chauffeur was allowed an early release from the gates), seven Evil Kenevils, Elvis’s and uncountable Spider Men charged through the Redwoods. No amount of race experience could be an advantage to any rider in this line up.

Gravity staunchly refused to test any of the drugs offered by race officials and rode like a true champion. It is our opinion that if race officials had enforced the no-lycra rule and disqualified competitors in ordinary cycling clothing his result would have been even more spectacular.

A final flourish at the water feature seconds before the finish line saw Gravity defy gravity and clear the trap that had other riders piling up in a mud wallow deeper than a mosh pit before streaking up the mudslide on the opposite bank and on to the finish line to take 978^th place – his reputation and his sponsorship in tact.

Check out more great pics.

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That voice in your head does mean you’re going bananas

18 October 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News

Keep your ears peeled in the produce section at the New World Vic Park and you might just start hearing voices. But don’t worry; you’re not going crazy – you will be receiving an important – albeit subliminal – message about All Good Fairtrade bananas.

Have a listen to your inner voice!

Believed to be the first of its kind in the world, the instore ad experience for All Good bananas features a unique piece of technology called the Audio Spotlight that directs a narrow beam of sound into a confined area, which only the person standing there can hear.

The Matt Williams and Freddie Coltart, the young creatives at Ogilvy ad agency came up with the concept, say that customers who stand on the floor sign in front of the All Good bananas stand will hear a message that intends to prick their conscience to consider the Fairtrade option.

Part of the message, voiced by Kiwi actress and All Good’s Wellington Ambassador Rose McIver, says “Know who I am? I’m that inner voice. I want to talk to you about something, something really important – Fair Trade…. Choosing them means you’re helping growers feed their families and support their communities – they get paid a fair price. So now you know which ones to choose, make a good choice.”

Victoria Park New World Store Owner, Jason Witehira, is also pleased with the installation and has been impressed by his customers’ initial reactions to it; “I’m always looking for innovative ways to tell the stories about products like these to our customers,” he says.

Get down and check it out. The installation will be on display at the Victoria Park New World supermarket until October 25.

Have a listen to your inner voice!

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All Good goes global in the South Island

15 October 2010 | Posted by simon in All Good News

We’re delighted to announce that we’re going global in the South Island! Our wonderful friends at Foodstuffs South Island, have decided to extend our trial in a few stores to make Fairtrade bananas available to all of their New World & Pak’nSave stores on the Mainland!

Up until now, we’ve be trialling in a few Foodstuffs stores in Nelson, Christchurch & Dunedin. It’s been a successful toe in the water so we’re spreading our wings thanks to the great people at Foodstuffs.

This means all of the New World & Pak’nSave stores in the South Island can now order our bananas from their central distribution system.

So keep your eyes peeled for our Fairtrade bananas in a store near you. Or if you want to be super proactive, if you live in the South Island and shop at a New World or Pak’nSave store and want to support banana farmers in El Guabo, please let your Produce Manager know.

There are lots of independent stores that are supporting us in the South Island too. Check out our stockists