Sainsbury’s Banana-O-Meter
Number of bananas eaten during Fairtrade Fortnight 2011
Fairtrade Fortnight
Today’s a big day, it’s the first day of Fairtrade Fortnight here in the UK (28th Feb – 13th March 2011). Fairtrade Fortnight is an annual event, it’s a time when our nation are asked to get involved in buying Fairtrade, to help promote awareness of Fairtrade values and to contribute to the national campaign. Last year’s Fairtrade Fortnight encouraged over one million and one swaps to fairtrade products. It’s all part of a much wider campaign though, which has so far helped to provide a more secure future to 7.5 million people in the developing world.
J Sainsbury Plc
Sainsbury are the world’s largest Fairtrade retailer with £276 million sales of fairtrade goods per year. Stocking Fairtrade items allows Sainsbury’s to provide customers with a greater choice between ethically sourced products and affordable prices. The banana is a good example of their fairtrade values since Sainsbury’s were the first supermarket to launch Fairtrade bananas in 2000, and are now the only supermarket in the UK to stock exclusively Fairtrade bananas. This policy has had a great effect on suppliers in developing countries, Hector Jose Oviedo a banana farmer in Columbia for example stated the following:
“The benefits that Fairtrade has brought to me and my family are enormous. Through the money that Fairtrade has provided, we now live in a new house built especially for banana farmers which gives us access to schools, hospitals and local libraries which we didn’t have before. Our quality of life has improved greatly thanks to Sainsbury’s and Fairtrade.”
Sainsbury’s have ongoing targets where Fairtrade is concerned, aiming to make Fairtrade a ‘half a billion pound’ business within the next five years. Ambitious yet admirable ambitions which rather than benefiting the major supermarket retailer alone, will contribute dramatically towards improving lives in developing countries as well as increasing consumer demand for the other UK major supermarkets to do the same.
Sainsbury’s Banana-O-Meter
I worked alongside leading PR agency Blue Rubicon on the Fairtrade Fortnight campaign for Sainsbury’s. My brief was to propose several concepts for the design and illustration of a Banana-O-Meter to measure the number of bananas munched in the UK throughout the Fairtrade Fortnight.
The first five concepts included ideas from depicting a banana plantation growing crops throughout the fortnight, to a big banana sack piling up higher as more Fairtrade bananas are munched.
The chosen concept was my illustration of a banana farmer exporting some of St Lucia’s finest Fairtrade bananas in his banana truck. The bananas will be piling up in the back of the truck throughout Fairtrade Fortnight as we munch our way through over 25 million Fairtrade bananas here in the UK! Last year we ate a rather impressive 25 million, and this years challenge is to beat our record by eating 26 million.
The banana truck is accompanied by the Banana-O-Meter, a giant green banana which ripens from bottom up to reveal how well we are doing with our banana munching challenge. The exact figure is also shown, displayed on top of the banana heap with a good old fashioned signpost.
So today’s the first day of Fairtrade Fortnight, and that means the UK have already eaten around 1.5m Fairtrade bananas. You can follow our progress by checking the Banana-O-Meter each day on Sainsbury’s Corporate website. And don’t forget to get involved by munching some of Sainsbury’s Fairtrade bananas over the fortnight to help the Banana-O-Meter grow!
Follow the Banana-O-Meter During Fairtrade Fortnight
Monday 28th Feb: Morning
Monday 28th Feb: Afternoon
