The International Fair Trade Towns Conference

The Fair Trade Towns movement, started in Garstang by our founder Bruce Crowther, is celebrating 25 years. Now a truly global grassroots campaigning movement, there are almost 5000 Fair Trade Towns, communities, universities, schools and places of worship around the world. The annual conference for everyone involved in the fair trade movement in general and Fair Trade Towns specifically is always a fantastic opportunity to learn, share and be inspired by campaigners from all over the world.

This year's conference - the 18th - was held in Edinburgh, capital of the world's only Fair Trade Nation, Scotland.

The weekend started with a reception at City Chambers in the old town, with delegates piped in by a traditionally tartan clad bagpiper. This was a great opportunity for us to catch up with old friends and meet new ones. The FIG Tree supplied each delegate with a small bar of especially branded chocolate and we had a stall selling more chocolate and Bruce's book - Not in My Lifetime - A Fair Trade Campaigner's Journal.

All the conference delegates received a bar of FIG Tree vegan oat milk chocolate.

As the father of the Fair Trade Towns movement lots of people wanted photos with Bruce and signed copies of his book. Many were taken as gifts for campaigners around the world including to a German MP and for Fairtrade Sweden. We sold all the copies of the book along with most of our chocolate stock, but no worries we will be ordering and making more. FIG Tree chocolate and the book can be purchased directly from Bruce at: brucecrowther300@gmail.com.

One of the highlights of the conference was meeting with Basma and Amira from the Holy Land Handicraft Cooperative Society in Palestine along with Yaamina, the manager of Hadeel in Edinburgh that sells Palestinian handicrafts and fair trade food and drink. The FIG Tree will be showing our support for Palestine by making chocolates using some Palestinian ingredients in the run up to Christmas. Watch this space!

Bruce with Basma and Amira from Palastine.

Director Samuel was invited to speak to the room about the work we have been doing in New Koforidua - showing the cocoa butter and cocoa powder that represent the first time cocoa has been processed in the town. You can read more about this on our other recent blog posts. He also shared details of how he met Bruce as a child in Ghana and how fair trade has changed his life for the better.

FIG Tree Director Samuel Fianu presenting at the International Fair Trade Towns Conference

There was plenty of Ghanaian representation at the conference including cocoa farmers Felix and Theresa who shared how their lives have been improved through fair trade projects, and two groups of basket weavers from Bolgatanga in Northern Ghana including Trade Aid Ghana whose baskets are now available in our eBay store.

Around 250 delegates at the conference

We came away inspired and enthused with passion for our fair trade initiatives, and looking ahead to next year when we'll meet again in Belgium - see you there?

The 19th International Fair Trade Towns Conference will be held on 9-11 October 2026 in Belgium