What to expect from Rainbow Turtle in 2014

The Rainbow Turtle team has been kept busy over the last year and there is no sign of slowing down for next year.  We've got so much to look forward to in the coming year and here is why…

Logo

Since October we had reviewed our current logo design and decided it was time for a change.  A graphics company, Pod Design, offered to design us one for free and came up with some ideas.  It took a while to home in on the one that we all agreed on but we have finally made a decision.  All of us at Rainbow Turtle are so excited about this new logo and cannot wait to unveil it next year!

New Website

The current website is outdated which has resulted in some of the features not functioning well. In order to keep up with the movement towards online purchases and to give better customer service we have decided to invest (modestly) in a new site which will incorporate the rebranding of the new logo design.  It will also be easy for us to maintain ourselves. The new website will function in two ways, a Fairtrade information platform for schools, churches and businesses as well as acting as an ecommerce website which will include more product selection for customers to purchase.  It will be a work in progress from January onwards so apologies for any disruptions it may cause.

January Shop Window Display

We can’t wait to get started on our new window display next month!  We will be stripping back and keeping it simple with this window display theme and a meaningful message for the start of the New Year will hopefully be picked up on.

Coffee Machine Proposal

Watch this space for information on how you can get one of these fantastic coffee percolators to allow you to serve ground coffee at the flick of a switch at church services and events. 

Ukuva iAfrica – The Senses of Africa

If you haven’t been to our shop or bought one of our spicy hampers recently, you’ve been missing out!  Ukuva iAfrica products have been introduced at Rainbow Turtle for a few months now and we are delighted with how well it has down with our customers.  What is Ukuva iAfrica you ask, well I’ll tell you! 

Ukuva iAfrica meaning “The Senses of Africa” in Xhosa was founded in Cape Town in 1996 by two travellers.  The recipes for the products were developed from the traveller’s journal named “Recipes from a Rucksack”.  The Ukuva product range includes a variety of different sauces and grinders which has their own unique flavours from all around the country.  The sauces range varies from mild to hot so there’s something for everyone; my favorite is the Malawi Gold hot chilli sauce.  The grinders truly do give you a sense of the different palates from all over the continent; they are a great accompaniment to any meal!  Did you know the inspiration behind the look of the sauce bottles came from the image of African beauty; many of the tribal women wore metal rings or beaded hoops around their necks to show their family’s status in society which holds cultural and social significance.

In January 2012, Turqle Trading adopted the Ukuva iAfrica brand, however prior 2012 the company had helped with the development of some of the Ukuva iAfrica sauces and spice grinders.  Turqle was established in 1997 in Cape Town in order to create sustainable jobs in South Africa through trade in fair and ethical food.  This is achieved by 2.5% of the export price of all Ukuva products going into the Fair Trade Trust.  The Trust is used for the education of the workers and their families in South Africa, for personal development courses and education to prevent HIV/AIDS.  The school fees of the children whose parents work at the factories which produce the Ukuva range is also paid for by the trust.

Why not give the Ukuva iAfrica range a try today, you won’t be disappointed!

Christmas Mayhem!

It’s been a busy month for Rainbow Turtle with our online hamper orders coming in thick and fast which is not surprising since they all have delicious Far Trade products in them.  From our Taste of Africa to our Chocolate Delight Hamper, you will find a great selection of hampers to choose from to send loved ones this Christmas.

We have been kept busy to our shop making sure it’s fully stocked of quality goods ranging from children’s toys, home furnishings, jewellery and much more!  If you still haven’t had the chance to pop along to see our Christmas window display, why not do it this week and come inside to see what we have to offer.

Christmas stalls have been coming in and out of the warehouse non stop over the last few weeks.  We would like to thank all the schools & churches who have requested one of our stalls to run during this Christmas period.  We would also like to thank Gryffe High School, St Vincent's Primary School, Glenifer High School, Our Lady of the Missions Primary School, Lourde’s High School, Castlehead High School and St Luke’s High School who all invited us to run our stalls at their schools and staff rooms.  They all turned out to be a hit with both pupils and teachers and we hope to continue to run more stalls for them in the New Year. 

Our Fairtrade Photo Exhibition made a visit to The University of the West of Scotland and Rainbow Turtle were on hand to run a stall for them and encourage staff and students to take an interest in Renfrewshire’s efforts to support Fairtrade over the last ten years.  I wonder where the exhibition will be heading next.....keep an eye out!

Our Story behind Rainbow Turtle’s Christmas Window Display

In July Liz Cotton travelled to Malawi to lead a team of people who were joining together on a house building project with the charity Habitat for Humanity. Habitat works in many countries throughout the world tackling the massive problem of inadequate housing.  All projects are locally run and teams are invited in to provide labour; encouragement and much needed funds to kick start more projects. Most housing projects become self sustaining as the home owners pay back the cost of the materials over time which feed back into a rolling fund, however this project was for orphans and vulnerable children and so the homes were gifted to the children to give them some security and stability. Liz has done this each year since 2007 and is always challenged and inspired afresh by the families they work with and the team members who leave the comfort of their own homes to help change someone’s life on the other side of the world.

This year was no exception and in the team were some people from Renfrewshire who were joined by folk from all over the UK and beyond. With only two people knowing each other before they left the whole team met up at various airports en route and had already gelled by the time they reached Lilongwe. For most it was the first experience of a trip to Africa but all got stuck in and were aspiring master brickies by the end of the first day.

In just over a week two houses had their roofs on and were nearly ready for occupation and the team were all best buddies and the sadness was as much leaving each other as leaving the community that they had grown so close to in such a short time.

In her other life Liz runs Rainbow Turtle, the Fair Trade organisation which has a retail shop on Gauze Street in Paisley and works with schools, businesses, faith and community groups throughout Renfrewshire to help them in their Fair Trade journeys and quest to making the world a better place.

Inevitably on the build people shared their life stories and Liz learned that Adam, who is based in Berlin, designs window installations for shops in places like Hong Kong, Shanghai and Paris. He had come to Malawi with a strong desire to use his practical skills to benefit others and was really interested in Liz’s work in Renfrewshire. There were many jokes about him coming to do a window display in Paisley but joke has turned to reality and not only had he designed a winter wonderland display of ice caves, icicles and origami animals but he came to oversee the installation.

Such was the bonding of the Malawi team that 17 of the team members came to join him and help build the installation. This had coincided with the Paisley Lights switch on and hopefully helped brighten up a corner of Paisley and highlighted all the wonderful products from foods to gifts, crafts, jewellery, toys and all sorts of Christmas decorations and nativity sets. Rainbow Turtle wants people to make your shopping matter this year and help change the lives of people in some of the poorest parts of our world. 

What are Zamora Plantain Chips?

Zamora Plantain Chips are the first, brand new organic Fairtrade crisps to be introduced in the UK.  The Plantain is produced in Zamora, south of Ecuador and bought over by the Fair Business Alliance Limited, based in Edinburgh.  The aim of Business Alliance is to create new opportunities for small farmers and producers from developing countries in Latin America to improve their livelihood and communities.  This is achieved by supporting them to become part of a fair and ethical supply chain and providing market for buyers in developed countries to support international sustainable trade. 

The Business Alliance has been actively involved in launching and distributing the Fairtrade crisps within the UK.  They have just won the 2013 Great Taste Award with their lightly salted Zamora Plantain Chips beating thousands of other products.  It is the world’s largest and most rigorous food awards which involved almost 10,000 products, 400 judges and thousands of hours of blind tasting.  The crisps were introduced six months after Fairtrade Fortnight took place in March.   Back in September at the Fair Trade Festival in Perth, the public were given the chance to sample the chips as well as the other two flavours including spicy and naturally sweet. 

Did you know Rainbow Turtle sell Zamora Plantain Chips in our shop in Paisley?  Why not pop in and give them a try, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed.  The Plantain Chips are a great snack; they are similar to chunky potato crisps but less crispy and are ideal to eat on its own or served with sweet or savoury dips.  My favourite has got to the spicy flavour!

Busy week for Rainbow Turtle!

What a busy week it has been for us! Last week we celebrated the Mod Phaislig coming to town by holding a stall all week at the Piazza shopping centre to promote everything Fairtrade alongside our office neighbours, Just Trading Scotland.  We also helped Paisley celebrate the Mod coming to town by decorating our shop with Mod bunting and posters to get everyone talking about this special event.  The Royal National Mod is an annual event which aims to showcase Gaelic language and culture to the wider world, through music, dance, drama, art and literature.  It was a great success and good to see people from all around the country turn out to support the event.  

As well as this, it was also national chocolate week so what better way to promote our great selection of Divine chocolate than at the Mod event for everyone to sample and buy.  This proved very popular along with the Whiskey & Gin tasting from other stall holders and & Just Trading Scotland's samples of their tasty jams, chutneys and sauces.  With a specially designed Fridge cake recipe by Britain’s celebrity chef and author Sam Stern to help support chocolate week, we at Rainbow Turtle created a hamper using Divine chocolate and other fairly traded ingredient to promote this tasty recipe for those to purchase.  

Thank you to everyone who turned up to support us last week and the volunteers at Rainbow Turtle & Just Trading Scotland who took the time to run the stall. We enjoyed taking part in both celebrations!

Paisley celebrates ten years of Fairtrade!

Did you know last month Paisley celebrated ten years of being a Fairtrade town?  The celebrations took place at Paisley's Town Hall on the 20^th August, organised by the Paisley Fairtrade Partnership with funding from Renfrewshire Council.  We at Rainbow Turtle were delighted to attend this event after all we are Renfrewshire's only dedicated Fair Trade shop!  Invited guests were represented from schools, community groups and local businesses all gathered to celebrate this occasion with us.  The event was essentially to thank all guests for all their hard work raising awareness and promoting Fairtrade over the last ten years.  

The celebrations commenced with Fairtrade afternoon tea and the cutting of the 10^th birthday anniversary cake which was made by our very own Liz Cotton using Fairtrade ingredients of course.  During the event there was an unveiling of a photograph exhibition that included a look back at some of the people, organisations and events over the past ten years which had contributed to Paisley's efforts to the Fairtrade campaign.  In the upcoming months this exhibition will tour Fairtrade events and points of interest in the town for the public to have a look at, so keep an eye out!  Throughout the celebrations the message being sent out was that the Fairtrade campaign is as important now as it was ten years ago.  We need to continue campaigning for Fairtrade in order to help transform developing world producer's lives and by changing one thing in your daily life to Fairtrade you are already making a difference.