The winners of this year's Edinburgh Lord Provost Fair Trade Awards were revealed at a fair trade brunch earlier today.
Cafe Camino, at the top of Leith Walk, hosted the awards presentation, along with fair trade stalls, to mark Fairtrade Fortnight 2012, which began on 27 February and runs until 11 March.
Lord Provost George Grubb presented the following awards:
- Best Fair Trade Achiever: Real Foods, For 30 years Real Foods has been at the forefront of natural food retailing in organic, fair trade and special diet foods.
- Best Fair Trade Newcomer: Hibiscus Flower. A supplier of fashionable and ethical clothing and accessories from their Edinburgh based shop and online.
- Best Fair Trade Faith Community: St John Ogilvie's Church, based in Wester Hailes and promoting Fairtrade in their parish since 2003.
- Best Fair Trade School: St Catherine's RC Primary, Gracemount, one of Edinburgh’s nine Fairtrade status schools who actively continue to promote a fair trade world.
The event included speeches on the Fair Trade movement from Norma Gadea Paiva, a woman coffee farmer from SOPPEXCCA Coffee Co-operative in Nicaragua, Hanan Alsanah, representing a project with 100 women producing fair trade rugs and other products in the Negev region of Israel, Martin Rhodes from Scottish Fair Trade Forum and Malcolm Brown from Scotmid.
Lord Provost George Grubb said: "Congratulations to everyone who received an award this year and to all those who were nominated. Edinburgh is an official Fairtrade City and we are committed to helping people take a step towards fair trade by encouraging people to swap their usual products for Fairtrade versions wherever possible."