Fair Trade

HOST has a deep passion and connection with Africa, at both personal and professional levels. Robin has been working with Ugandan and Tanzanian coffee, tea producers and artisans for more than 20 years and has recently helped shift hi-tech shoe manufacture out of Asia and into Ethiopia. He has witnessed the challenges and opportunities of culturally rich, commercially impoverished communities.

We are entering an age of consumer enlightenment. An age where we are realising we can vote for change with the choices we make in the store. The first shoots of this new era are seen in our awareness that the goods we consume are grown, or made, by fellow humans. That our ‘cheaper, faster bigger’ culture is destroying the lives of the producers who are held hostage to it and that if we don’t change, and change soon, there will be little left of this planet for our offspring.

Fair Trade is HOST’s specialist subject. We’ve grown up with it, created a lot of the language that has filtered through the world of fair trade as well as the strategies for justifying premiums while avoiding the charity trap. What has underpinned our passion for fair trade has not been fair trade itself but Cafédirect and the direct and personal relationships that come through its partner organisations and cooperatives.

It’s not just about fair prices, it’s about an ever-closer connection between consumers and growers - a reconciliation after years of economic abuse. When you work for an organisation that has the power pull together 300 writers, artists and performers on the strength of an ethic, when you can ask a coffee farmer to step out of her mountain community and into the media spotlight as Madonna of Africa, when you work with people who invest their lives into tiny organic orchards and gourmet products in the belief that quality will find a market, you can also start to appreciate that conventional business doesn’t really stand a chance.

Cafédirect pioneered fair trade in the UK, it was here before the label, and host has been behind it all the way. In 2007 HOST took up with the International Federation of Alternative Trade (IFAT) which, on 15th October 2008 became the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO). The WFTO rolled out through World Fair Trade Day 09, circling the earth with drumming in a festival of authentic Fair Trade, and uniting 110 million people in a renewed commitment to 100% Fair Trade. Big stuff... but loads of fun.

This year for World Fair Trade Day HOST Universal are planning to bring fair trade to Berwick Street in the heart of London’s Soho on Friday 9th May 2014, with stalls on the bustling historic market and talks at SOHOST, our ethical, CoWorking community.