Blogging for Good

live simply. buy ethically.

May 1, 2013
by morgan
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Divine is for Mothers

 Everything on our website is 20% off, including our producer highlight, Divine Chocolate, using the code MOTHERS at checkout!

The chocolate industry in West Africa is marred by violence, child labor, unfair business and accounting practices, and even slavery. The low prices we see here in America get lower on the backs of overworked, underpaid, and sometimes underage farmers in countries like Ghana and The Ivory Coast. These two countries farm about 2/3 of the world’s cocoa beans, and yet still face crippling poverty every single day. The farmers of Kuapa Kokoo believe that there has to be a better way.

In the early 1990s, a group of farmers frustrated with being cheated at every turn, pooled their resources and formed the Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative. These farmers based their cooperative on fair trade principles, transparency, democracy, efficiency, and equality for women. In 1998, they formed a publicly traded company, now Divine Chocolate, so that they could directly market their work to the rest of the world. The farmers of Kuapa Kokoo own nearly half of the company, hold seats on the board, and host yearly board meetings in Ghana. Here’s an interview with Comfort, one of the farmers. She talks about how women are treated within Kuapa Kokoo, and her rise to the position of National Secretary. Check it out here.

Know that when you purchase Divine Chocolate from Trade as One, you participate in a radically innovative business model, and cast your vote for fairness (and tastiness, don’t forget how good these chocolate bars taste). We are proud to highlight Diving Chocolate this Mother’s Day as a producer that cares deeply for women in an industry that often doesn’t. And just for Mother’s Day, all Divine Chocolate products are 20% off using the code MOTHERS at checkout. Tell your mother she’s divine with Divine Chocolate!

 

April 24, 2013
by morgan
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Made by Moms

If you don’t know about Alaffia, you should! And just for Mother’s Day, everything is 20% off using the code MOTHERS. Not only do they make products that are great for your skin, but they care deeply about women and preserving traditional shea techniques of mothers in West Africa.

 
Fair Trade Shea Butter from producers like Alaffia has the power to change lives of the cooperative members. Very specifically, Alaffia was formed to help West African communities become sustainable through the fair trade of indigenous resources, like shea. Women in West Africa have been excluded from the formal education sector which means they cannot read or write, making them less valuable as employees. However, a main component of the Alaffia Cooperative is empowerment so the women are acknowledged for their unique skills, traditions and knowledge and compensated accordingly. Alaffia pays 15-25% above market prices for shea nuts and the cooperative members receive a salary that is more than 4 times the average family income in Togo. Additionally, members receive full medical care, employment security and paid vacation.

Through direct involvement in the entire process — from gathering the wild shea nuts and crafting the butter, to distribution locally and abroad—Alaffia cooperative members receive fair and steady incomes. In addition, 10% of sales always go directly back to our community empowerment projects. The protective and emollient properties of Shea Butter are a huge benefit in skincare.
Alaffia is committed to giving back to their communities in West Africa, and are keen on empowering women within their families and communities. In 2003, Alaffia saw a need for women to receive pre and post natal care. They partner with various clinics throughout West Africa so that 400 women a year can receive care that’s vital to the health of the mother, children, and whole communities.
We are proud to feature Alaffia as a producer because of their commitment to provide economic stability for mothers while creating products for women that give back to communities in West Africa. So when you buy products from Alaffia, you’re not just caring for yourself, but for women around the world. Check out all of our Alaffia products today!

April 22, 2013
by morgan
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One World

 

 

Environmental Stewardship is an essential part to the principles of Fair Trade. Here are a few statistics for some Earth Day perspective:

1. With only 5.1% of the world’s population, North America consumes just over 24% of global energy.
source: United Nations Environment Programme, 2007. Global Environment Outlook 4: Summary for Decision Makers.
2. U.S. consumption grew sixfold between 1960 and 2008 but the U.S. population only grew by a factor of 2.2. This means consumption alone nearly tripled between 1960 and 2008. 
source: Worldwatch Institute, 2010. State of the World 2010.
3. In the past 50 years, humans have consumed more resources than in all previous history.
source: U.S. EPA, 2009. Sustainable Materials Management: The Road Ahead.

 

So now that you have the statistics, here are some ideas that you can do in the next twenty minutes, five days, and few months to work against the forces (aka our over-consumption) that hurt our earth.

 

20 minutes
Take the survey by Stanford University about the Fair Trade Movement. Your answers will be used to see how you use use your money as a way of voting and how you engage with your community on this topic. The goal is to better understand the Fair Trade Movement and how it’s grown to be a part of people’s lifestyles, but also to see if it can be replicated in other areas of social need.
In addition, four survey participants will win a Trade as One Spring box full of fair trade goodies.

 

5 days
Our 5 day food fast, Hungry for Change, is a way to experience what most of the world eats, living on $2 a day. Designed to be done in a group for that added encouragement when it gets hard, Trade as One also sends a daily email with stories of people’s lives being change through ethical consumption choices.

 

A few months
Take a hard look at your consumption. Seriously. An easy place to start is with food.  Do you know where your products come from and if the farmers and producers are treated fairly? This is the reason Trade as One started its fair trade subscription service, so that that people can work ethical consumption into their lives through products they love. With food, it’s not about cutting it out, it’s about making better choices with it. And just for Earth Day we’re offering $30 off your first subscription box with the code EARTH20!
Beyond food, what are the areas of consumption you can change? A few easy changes are using reusable grocery bags for when you go shopping, avoiding bottled water and instead buying a reusable one, riding your bike as much as possible, and using home remedies for hair and body products to reduce plastic waste.
Why are we urging you to do all of this, you ask? Because we’ve only got one world, and we hope you’ll join us.

April 18, 2013
by morgan
2 Comments

The Trade as One 20-20 Advocate Program

 

What is the Trade as One 20-20 Advocate Program?

This is a fun way to spread the word about Trade as One’s subscription box and save money on your own subscription! Every subscriber has a unique Advocate Code. When people sign up using that code, they get $20 off their first box and you get $20 credited to your account when your next box ships.

 

How do I get started?

Check your inbox for an e-mail titled “Become a Trade as One Advocate!” Here you’ll find your unique Advocate Code. Send this code to all your friends and tell them to sign up on our Subscription Page. Think they’ll need convincing? Our video does a wonderful job explaining why the Trade as One subscription is important to our lives as ethical consumers. Your codes are active and we are so thankful have to you as a Trade as One advocate. When people sign up using your unique Advocate Code, they’ll get $20 off their first box and you’ll get $20 credited to your account when your next box ships! Share it with as many people as you’d like– the more people that sign up with your code, the more credit you get towards your own subscription!

 

I want to be an advocate! But I don’t subscribe to the Trade as One box…

Our Trade as One 20-20 Advocate Program is only open to subscribers. Because how can you advocate for Trade as One’s subscription if you don’t know how awesome it is yourself? Not to worry though! Sign up for your Trade as One subscription today and we’ll send you a unique Advocate Code, so you can start sharing with your friends and save money too!
 For any additional questions, please email info@tradeasone.com

 

April 10, 2013
by morgan
0 comments

If you Give a Man a Fish…

Ever hear of the saying “give a man to fish and he’ll eat for a day, but if you teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime?”

What if we take this fish analogy and apply it to three words we hear often in the non-profit world – relief, development, and sustainability? It might look something like this: “Relief is giving a starving community free fish; development is teaching a community how to fish; and sustainable development is building an ongoing economy that can purchase those fish. It is sustainable development that will empower that community over time.”

And that’s exactly what Trade as One does. We use a business and enterprise approach to poverty alleviation by selling products that we need to create jobs. This is not a charity model, and this is not about giving a percentage off of people’s profits and donating it. This is using straight and pure market mechanism to create jobs for the poor by making small adjustments to the sorts of things that we consume. Because the poor don’t want handouts, they want jobs– and what better way to do that than through food?

In order to do this, we partner with producers from around the world to bring you fair trade products. There’s Alaffia, who works with local communities in Togo, West Africa and provides them with employment, and training. They also invest in community health and education initiatives while supporting environmentally sustainable practices.

A Trade as One favorite is Divine Chocolate. In the early 1990s a group of farmers frustrated with being cheated, pooled their resources and formed the Kuapa Kokoo Cooperative. They based their cooperative on the fair trade principles, transparency, efficiency and equality for women. In 1998, they formed a publicly traded company, now Divine Chocolate, so that they could directly market their work to the rest of the world. The farmers of Kuapa Kokoo own nearly half of the company, hold seats on the board, and host yearly board meetings in Ghana.

And then there’s Alter Eco, who since 1999 has sourced and sold a variety of different foodstuffs of exceptional quality from around the globe, including Thailand, The Philippines, and Bolivia. They are committed to facilitating the development of independent producers as well as distributors, while ensuring good working conditions for all workers. Their ethical practice in all levels of farm to table production has gained national attention, and both Alter Eco and Divine Chocolate have landed on The Better World Shopping Guide’s Top Twenty list for their overall social and environmental record.

And those are just three of our producers! We purchase products from over ten companies and offer them in our fair trade food subscription program, where we bring you food from around the world straight to your doorstep. The products in the subscription box give dignified jobs to some of the most marginalized and poorest people in the world. In return, those jobs bring to them a living wage, so that can do all the things that we would expect to do with our wages, like feed their family, educate their kids, and provide health care.

This is the future of fair trade– where eating fair trade becomes ingrained in your lifestyle with the regular food shipments every three months, and you aren’t left wondering what or where to buy these products because we search, taste, and curate the box for you. As famous food author, Michael Pollan says “The wonderful thing about food is you get three votes a day. Every one of them has the potential to change the world.” And we couldn’t agree more. So from around the world and straight to your door, Trade as One’s subscription is the future of fair trade.

April 2, 2013
by morgan
0 comments

Scones, Scones, Scones!

Spring may be here, but warm scones from the oven will never go out of season. These scones are made by Women’s Bean Project, a non-profit organization that employs women who have experienced chronic unemployment or poverty to make delicious mixes and food.

 
Each product has instructions and the name of the woman who made it, further connecting you to the person behind your food. All of Women’s Bean Project Products are easy to make, and need just a few extra ingredients.
For the scones you’ll need:
-Women’s Bean Scone Mix. This scone mix is included in the Spring subscription box, or is available on our website.
- 11oz of heavy whipping cream
- 1 stick of butter
- 2 eggs
The instructions are easy. The prep time is about 10 minutes.
- pre-set the oven to 375
- Cut the butter into the mixture.
- Add eggs and cream
- (Optional) Add dried cranberries or raisins
- Flatten mixture, with about 1 inch height
- Cut into circles with a biscuit cutter
- put in the oven for 15-18 minutes
 
After the time is up, enjoy! Add some color by topping it with butter, jelly, or jam.
After several months of working at Women’s Bean Project, women come out with the skills needed to be successful. Employers know that Women’s Bean Project graduates are reliable in their skills, so companies are eager to hire them. Once women find jobs, other women are accepted into the program so that they too can gain career skills.
So enjoy these scones with a cup of coffee or tea, knowing that your purchasing power is making a difference in women’s lives. See more Women’s Bean products. Learn more about Women’s Bean Project

March 26, 2013
by morgan
0 comments

Making this season a lifestyle

This is the season for reflection and repentance. To focus on the things that distract us from a worshipful life, and realign ourselves with the things of the Kingdom.

To enhance this season of repentance and reflection, Trade as One encouraged people to participate in our Hungry for Change program. People come out of this program understanding what it’s like to live like most of the world eats (on less than $2 a day), and have a bigger heart for the people of the world. Furthermore, a portion of the money spent to buy the kits is directed to poor communities around the world to feed families for a year.

Whether you participated in Lent, Hungry for Change, or just chose this season to reflect, it seems to all end once Easter comes. We go back to the things that distract us from our priorities, re-introduce soda and candy or whatever we gave up for Lent into our diets and, wait until the next year to do it all over again.

But Trade as One wants to break that cycle– because shouldn’t the radical season of Lent to honor and reflect on the radical life of Jesus deserve a radical form of living from his followers?

Let’s make this season last; let’s make it a lifestyle. And what better way to do that than with food? When you know where your food comes from, you’re honoring the people that made it through their lives and stories. And it’s when we honor the lives and stories of the people behind our products that we realize the love of Jesus cannot be confined into a 40 something day period, but should be a daily and intentional action. And it’s through this intentionality that we begin to recognize the beauty of God’s love for the earth, for people, and for you.

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Interested in our Fair Trade food subscription program? Click here.

Interested in Hungry for Change? Click here.

Interested in shopping ethically? Click here.

March 8, 2013
by morgan
0 comments

Celebrating Women

Happy International Women’s Day! Trade as One’s producers support women from around the world. Rasmeyeh (pictured) is an olive farmer in Palestine for Caanan Fair Trade, where she is given a dignified  job and a living wage for her work. And she’s not the only one. There are women behind all of our products who are able to support themselves while maintaining their place in the home and care for their families. Sadly, women are marginalized and abused in many places in the world (including the U.S.), but it’s through ethical consumption and buying Fair Trade that we will start to see the world change. Where women will become empowered and educated. Where they will not be discriminated against because of their gender. And where they will be seen as equal in all parts of society. So, whether it’s International Woman’s Day or not, Trade as One is committed to honoring women and their important place in our world by offering products that help bring the poor, many of them women, out of poverty and into jobs with living wages. And that is something to celebrate.

February 28, 2013
by morgan
0 comments

Apples and your Trade as One Box


No, Trade as One has not launched a new line of apples. But they do relate to the Trade as One subscription box. How you ask?

 

Well, the Trade as One subscription box was designed and curated to compliment what is already in your kitchen. For example. You have some apples on the counter (pictured), some leafy greens in the fridge, and the quinoa* that come in your Trade as One box in the cupboard. Mix it all together and voila! You have an Apple Quinoa Salad. Alright, So you don’t have apples. But you do have some chicken, some broth, your Trade as One rice* and a plethora spices from your winter stockpile. Why not make some Mexican Chicken and Brown Rice Soup? Or maybe you just need some sugar* for your coffee? Because that’s in the box too. Or how about some Pepper Infused Olive Oil* for your Rosemary Olive Oil bread that you’re about to bake? Alright, you get the idea.

 

It’s simple. We find the contents for you. The items that are doing good for people and the earth. And you use them throughout your every day life with whatever concoction that is coming out of your kitchen. The Trade as One box isn’t designed so that you’ll only eat the food from the box (because let’s be honest, no one wants to eat a plain bowl of quinoa every night), it’s designed to help you commit to living simply and buying ethically a little bit each day through the food you eat.

So make every day a Fair Trade day by signing up or learning more!

*Included in the Winter Trade as One subscription box.

February 25, 2013
by morgan
0 comments

We’ve Officially Relaunched: Thoughts from the Founder

Well, it’s finally here – Trade as One is officially re-launching! Ever since Cath and I started Trade as One seven years ago, people have told us that they have been inspired as they catch the vision of using their spending power to create a better world. Many thousands of people have joined us in our mission and purchased fair trade products over the years, mostly for gifts. We have also repeatedly heard people expressing a desire for a deeper, more practical call to action – a way of committing to our mission   that is automatically built into how they consume everyday items.

As many of you will be aware, our Food Subscription Program (formerly known as Change for Good) does just that. For $1 a day we will deliver four shipments a year of all natural, organic, fair trade consumables like olive oil, rice, sugar, tea, coffee, and soap. Each delivery also includes a booklet that connects you to the people who made the products through their stories, and gives you some new healthy recipes.

This program is the future of what we are doing here at Trade as One, and today is officially when we re-launch everything that we are about in order to support this focus. There is a new logo, a new video, new packaging. We have finished selling our crafts and are 100% focused on foods and other consumable items like body care. We are excited, and feel like perhaps for the first time since we began seven years ago, we have a call to action for people that is year-round, not just when people are buying gifts. It is simple to take action on, and meets the objective that we always wanted to achieve, that of helping people make tangible steps to change how they live in order to help others live. We hope you will join us!