Baking Up A Treat Fairly

By theorkneynews on February 15, 2020 • ( 1 Comment )

18 of Orkney’s cafes and bakeries are baking up a chocolate feast for your eyes and taste buds as part of Fairtrade Fortnight.

2019 Orkney Fairtrade winning bake from Julia’s Cafe

Fairtrade Fortnight – Monday 24th February to Sunday 8th March – is dedicated nationally to highlighting exploitation in the cocoa industry.

Orkney Fair Trade Group is once again celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight with a cocoa baking contest in some of Orkney’s most popular cafés.

Orkney Fair Trade Group are supplying 500g of Fairtrade cocoa to participating cafés for them to bake up something really special – and truly sweet in every way. And we want everybody to head out and try the taste of Fairtrade.

Orkney’s chocoholics can vote for their favourite Fairbaking café, with a chance to win a whole hamper of Fairtrade goodies for themselves, and a prize certificate for the county’s best Fairbakers.

Here are some recipes you might want to try yourself with that delicious Fairtrade chocolate:

In the UK, the average person eats an astonishing 11kg of chocolate every year, and the industry is worth nearly £4billion. But most cocoa is grown by smallholder farmers in West Africa, who often earn as little as 74p a day – well below the poverty line – and as a result some resort to child labour and even slavery to keep their prices competitive.

There is also widespread use of toxic chemicals and dangerous equipment, and few controls to protect people or the environment. Some of the biggest names in the chocolate market are buying cocoa products from unregulated sources.

Fairtrade marked chocolate and other cocoa products – and those marketed under the Cadbury’s Cocoa Life scheme – give consumers a guarantee that their favourite treat is being produced by farm workers who have decent pay and working conditions, and are supported to grow cocoa sustainably.