Sunday 10 November 2013

About Liberation and FTAK

Before I tell you about the cooking experience, I want to say a little bit about the product I chose for this week's cooking experience: Fairtrade Cashew Nuts, especially because the 2 organisations I will mention are very dear to me.
During my work with a charity called Twin Trading , where I leaned everything I know about Fair Trade and where I met and worked with the most committed, intelligent and wonderful people I could have ever hoped for, I was fortunate to work  closely with smallholder nut producers from all over the world who sell their nuts in the UK marked via a company that Twin and other committed organisations established  in 2007 called Liberation Foods . Liberation is not only special because it's one of the biggest (if not the main) fairtrade nuts importer in the UK, but also because it's mainly owned by nut producers themselves.
The other organisation I want to mention is Fair Trade Alliance Kerala (FTAK), which is a cooperative from Southern India which supplies its cashews to Liberation, and which hosted us in 2008. In particular I want to mention my dear friend Tomy Mathews from FTAK, who is one of my Fair Trade heroes. Tomy has served in several boards (including the Fairtrade Foundation one) over the past few years and I'm wouldn't be surprised if he ended up taking the role of Head of the United Nations!

So, this week it was easy to choose the ingredient, because I am a confessed nut-aholic, who  had the pleasure of working with many other committed fairtrade nutters from all over the world!.

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