A TASTE OF A FAIRER WORLD

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sun 13th Mar 2005

Local Councillor Greg Mulholland joined staff at the Co-op store on Cardigan Road in Headingley for a Fairtrade tasting session. The tasting was arranged to mark the end of Fairtrade Fortnight and a fortnight of activity promoting Fairtrade products in Leeds one year after the city was declared the UK's biggest Fairtrade City.

In 2003 Councillor Mulholland had brought the unanimously accepted Fairtrade City motion to Leeds City Council as well as being part of the TIDAL (Trade Injustice Debt Action Leeds) team that delivered the successful campaign to make Leeds a Fairtrade City.

Says Councillor Mulholland, "This year's Fairtrade Fortnight has been a real celebration of a year of Leeds as a Fairtrade City and I was delighted to once again assist in giving people the opportunity to taste Fairtrade products. We always find that people are really impressed with the quality and range of what's on offer."

"It was fantastic when we achieved Fairtrade City status for Leeds but that is really just the beginning. It is important that we continue to show our commitment to Fairtrade products and we want to see more and more businesses and companies stock and serve them. The Co-op continue to lead the way in terms of the range of Fairtrade products and the profile they are given in the store and they have played a key part in Leeds Fairtrade campaign."

Asst Store Manager, Steven Machin said, "The Co-op are totally behind the Fairtrade movement and the number of products we stock are increasing all the time. Our customers are very receptive to Fairtrade products and we were please to have Cllr Mulholland helping get the message across to local people". He added, the more people taste the excellent Fairtrade products we stock, the more they like them as well of course as knowing that the producers are getting a Fairer deal".

Councillor Mulholland is on the city's Fairtrade Steering Group and still finds the time to take TIDAL and CAFOD's message into schools and the community. 2005 has seen the launch of the Make Poverty History campaign, backed by Nelson Mandela, Bono and a host of celebrities as well as development organisations and charities across the world (www.makepovertyhistory.org)

Explains Cllr Mulholland "2005 must be the year that the world community commits to move towards ending the apartheid of global poverty once and for all and fairer trade is central to that. Through unfair trade rules, poor countries lose 13 times what they receive in aid, so until we see fairer trade, we will not see a fairer world."