Countdown host and The Apprentice star Nick Hewer may become part of the Fairtrade Foundation’s campaign for a fairer banana industry.
The organisation met with Hewer last Monday to invite him to visit Fairtrade-certified banana farms.
Eileen Maybin, head of media relations at the Fairtrade Foundation said the organisation hopes that after the visits, Hewer will be inspired to support the banana campaign further.
“We chose Nick Hewer as he has a strong reputation as a trusted businessman, with real integrity, and we would welcome the opportunity to show him the reality for banana farmers,” she added.
Maybin said Hewer has been invited to visit banana farmers and workers, in either Latin America, the Caribbean or West Africa, to see Fairtrade in action and to see the real impact that cheap prices in the UK have on banana producers.
She added: “Should he accept our invitation to visit Fairtrade certified farms, this would be his first exposure to Fairtrade producers. So he would not have a specific title.
“We hope that he will be impressed by the benefits the Fairtrade system brings to producers, and inspired to support our banana campaign further.”
The banana campaign, launched on 24 February in time for Fairtrade Fortnight, kicked off with a report named ‘Britain’s Bruising Banana Wars’, that outlined the pressures on the banana supply chain from continued downward pricing of the fruit.
Maybin said that the petition, calling on the government to put pressure on retailers to investigate banana pricing, now has nearly 15,000 signatures.
She said it has been backed by a number of MPs and will continue throughout the year with further events planned.
“We are focusing on bananas this year because the relentless downward pressure on UK banana prices has driven a shift in many banana producing countries towards job losses, casual labour and the marginalisation of smallholder producers,” she said.
“This is a race to the bottom which will ultimately be in no-one’s benefit.”
She added that Fairtrade enables farmers to defend themselves from these pressures and empowers them to become entrepreneurs who can add value and diversify.
Nick Hewer is exclusively interviewed in the next issue of FPJ, out 18 April.
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