Packaging vs. Palestinians
Following on from the 'to snack or not to snack' discussion, I thought I'd point out the dilemma of Palestinian Dates.
You'll notice that I ordered some of these, but they are excessively packaged, unlike dates bought in bulk. Same goes for Equal Exchange cashews: they are likely much fairer trade than the Lembas cashews, but again they have much more packaging.
Not sure we can have a policy on this; perhaps case-by-case discussions are needed. But in any case I thought I'd bring this up before I leave on Tues.
Joy Sun 23 Nov 2014 10:41AM
I also agree that for these sensitive and special items, packaging is less of an issue than supporting something really good, in the cashew case because we have more guarantee about where they're from for a product that has negative issues for people involved in processing it, and for dates because Palestinians have such a bad deal. On that note, I spoke yesterday to a Bradford Friends of Palestine group who said that minimum order for Zaytoun is about £550 but we talked about contacting the Leeds friends of palestine group to see about splitting an order with them. I can follow this up if it is agreed upon, but what might be an appropriate order size? 500ml palestinian olive oil is £6 a bottle. I don't know about dates. They also have soap and maftoul couccous (also in small packages). We do of course have soap-makers in Leeds and olive oil from slightly closer than Palestine, but I guess we perhaps need a wider discussion on what to stock from Zaytoun before thinking about ordering directly/ with another group
Patrick Wed 26 Nov 2014 12:36PM
Hi :)
I agree with you both that in general the emphasis should be on supporting people rather than minimal packaging, but nevertheless taking it case by case makes sense to me.
I know we are just getting up and running with loomio to get people involved and experiment, but going forward is this type of discussion one only for food hub members to make decisions on? No worries either way, I just can't remember the exact rules!
Patrick Wed 26 Nov 2014 5:42PM
PS - Joel, I hope everything went well when you landed in the US :)
Annmarie Thu 27 Nov 2014 12:40AM
Foodhub is open to all as are these discussions and decisions :)
Patrick Thu 27 Nov 2014 4:30PM
Thanks for the clarification :)
Joel MH · Sat 22 Nov 2014 2:15PM
My opinion, for the record, is that in these cases fair trade should be a priority. Packaging is an issue, of course, but it seems a relatively minor one in comparison to supporting exploited workers.