Oh sugar, another ethical question.

[Milims]

Not sure - it's something that I kinda caught on the news - but it was probably early in the morning and I was half asleep!

[Clara]

Here's the story, though it was announced back in february during fairtrade week and they said they aimed to have it done by the end of next year.It would be amazing if they did it, but i suspect the economic situation might have put it on the back boiler, perhaps fearing that consumers will move away from more highly priced fair trade goods now.

[ina]

Amazing!

But what really bugs me is this last paragraph:

"There has been an increase in the number of UK retailers stocking Fairtrade products, such as bananas, coffee and flowers, including T*sco, Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer."

Now, they've been selling Fairtrade products for years, so they don't actually do anything to increase the number of retailers selling the stuff. But it's always nice to get a bit of free advertising, isn't it! Why don't they mention my local village shop, which also sells Fairtrade products???

[gdb]

Oo. no question for me. Not Silver Spoon.

They are a big agro business with all that that entails. (Large fields without hedgerows, widespread use of pesticides, huge subsidies (probably) and so on...). I may be doing them a disservice but I dont imagine so.

Go for Fair Trade or, to support local British industry, buy organic sugar produced nearby.

[Graye]

My ex was from North Nottinghamshire (bordering onto south Yorkshire and Lincolnshire) and I remember seeing loads of sugarbeet in the fields whenever we visited. I pass that area by on the M1 now without calling in so I'm not sure what is happening there now, although I do know that sugar produced by Silver Spoon is mainly from beets grown in East Anglia these days.

We used to love visiting an area in southern Spain near a town called Salobreña and a few years ago sugar cane was growing in the fields everywhere around there. Last January we spent a month down there in a little village called La Caleta and discovered that the last sugar cane refinery in Europe (located in that village) had ceased to trade and had been converted to a plant producing industrial/medicinal alcohol. On that basis it's fair to say that only sugar produced from beet would be produced in Europe these days. Cane sugar now comes mainly from the hotter countries, South America, India, China etc.

[Clara]

We used to love visiting an area in southern Spain near a town called Salobreña and a few years ago sugar cane was growing in the fields everywhere around there. Last January we spent a month down there in a little village called La Caleta and discovered that the last sugar cane refinery in Europe (located in that village) had ceased to trade and had been converted to a plant producing industrial/medicinal alcohol. On that basis it's fair to say that only sugar produced from beet would be produced in Europe these days. Cane sugar now comes mainly from the hotter countries, South America, India, China etc.

Weird....i definitely bought sugar a couple of months ago that was labelled "Guadalfeo" (the river valley that emerges between Motril and Salobrena), in fact it was organic too, it was the dark brown sticky stuff, perhaps it is being refined on a smaller scale?

[Graye]

The refinery in La Caleta was in fact called the Azucarera del Guadalfeo (and before that the Azucarera de Salobreña Nuestra Señora del Rosario) but it definitely stopped production in 2006. I did see odds and ends of sugar cane growing so I suppose it's possible some sort of production goes on locally though.

Strangely enough when we were down there a friend gave me a jar of molasses labelled Azucarera de Salobreña Nuestra Señora del Rosario. It said it was Miel de Caña (cane honey) but I don't think its content has much to do with bees! I read somewhere that honey and sugar do not degrade and don't legally need "sell by" dates so I suppose on that basis we could be buying cane sugar processed in Europe for some time to come!

[Clara]

Miel de Cana (sorry english keyboard no n with a ~) is molasses. I think that's quite a common brand around here. I'll take a closer look and see if it mentions where it is produced, after all they could still be using the name of the factory and making it in Timbuctou!

I was just curious because I wondered whether brown sugar and molasses was a lot easier to make and could therefore be done on a cottage industry scale, I think I may have read something about in John Seymour's book. The sugar I bought was clearly hand bagged, it just had a handwritten label on it.

I just found an old molasses jar in the cupboard and that was registered in Malaga, but it didn't say specifically where it was made. It did have a BBD though (May09).

[Rosendula]

...(sorry english keyboard no n with a ~)....

Clara, you might like to try this:-

Open a word document, and hold down the Ctrl key while you press ~ followed by n. It doesn't seem to work for me on forums, but you can copy and paste it from your word document (I'm guessing it irritates you to leave it out. )

If that doesn't even work on a word document, click on the 'insert' button, then 'symbol' . A box will open and there should be a ñ in there, somewhere in 'Latin-1'. If you look near the bottom of the box it will tell you what the shortcut is (which you can change if you want).

[Graye]

I must admit I hadn't given thought to the ñ when I used it but we always buy Spanish keyboards as they give us all the Spanish spelling "oddities" as well as the French ones without the frustrating French layout (anyone who is a touch typist who tries to use a French keyboard will know what I mean!). They are also perfectly usable for typing in English - just a few little used keys in strange positions which you soon get used to. It involves a little persuasion with the language settings but overall it's really useful.

My Miel de Caña is back in France but as I have just fought my way through the Transmanche site to book our ferry for Tuesday night I'll have a look to see who produced it and when once we get back. I would think the stuff you are buying down there would be lovely. I'll look for some next time we come that way in November.

[mrsflibble]

! Why don't they mention my local village shop, which also sells Fairtrade products???

or the fairtrade stalls run by many people all over the country in farmers markets and schools? my mum oversees the tradecraft stall at the school she works in, it's the only tuckshop type affair they have and it's flipping popular! (she's my main source for plantain chips lol!)

[Rod in Japan]

As I was piddling here and there on my bike today, I thought about the question of 'miel', and I seemed to remember that it was one of those French words that is used somewhat generically to mean a class of somewhat similar things, in this case sweet, syrupy things, in the same way that crème can also cover the crème de this and that drinks.

I bought some locally produced honey today of the 'flowers of the mountain' variety. This is pungent and not hugely sweet, and goes well in other things.

[ina]

buy organic sugar produced nearby.

Has anybody seen organic sugar produced in Britain? The stuff I get (from SUMA, in a 25 kg bag) is from Brazil... I would prefer to buy local. but if it only comes in 500g packets, with a massive packaging surcharge, it's not an option...

[Rosendula]

Thanks for all your replies. I'm really enjoying this thread.

I'm sure someone asked me where I can buy Fair Trade sugar at the same price as normal sugar but I can find the question now. Anyway, it took me a couple of days to remember where it was, but it was S@!n$bury. I do agree with Green Aura, though, that we can't be 100% confident that what they say is Fair Trade is as fair as we would like. It does seem to have become more of a selling point for supermarkets, rather than the supermarkets becoming ethical.

I like Rod's suggestion of growing/producing my own sweetener. Unfortunately, I just don't have the room for bees and I'm not sure what sweetener I could grow in a small space. I did once grow liquorice which I heard was a sweetener, but I didn't have a clue how to go about processing it. I guess I'll have to do a bit of reading

buy organic sugar produced nearby.

Has anybody seen organic sugar produced in Britain? ...

I'm hoping someone can come up with something for this, and that it's not too expensive. I do my own baking and brewing so we do tend to buy a fair amount of the stuff.

[contadina]

I think producing your own honey on a small scale is the most ethical way of producing your own sweetness, but just thought I'd share a little titbit about Tate and Lyle. I lived near to Lord and Lady Lyle many moons ago and every year they'd hold a party/garden show/village fete for the entire community. It was great fun - loads of creative competitions for adults and children, free food, drinks and entertainment. This was in the days before corporate responsibility and it did wonders for the local community.