Twin Trading is the Fairtrade company behind Fairtrade brands Cafédirect, Divine Chocolate and AgroFair UK, while Tesco is the trailblazer for Fairtrade nuts in UK supermarkets. It was the first supermarket to launch a nut product – Fairtrade brazils last March. It then launched a Fairtrade peanut and raisin mix and Fairtrade natural cashews at the end of last year. The two new products will also be in more than 600 branches of Tesco in time for Fairtrade Fortnight this year (February 26 – March 11). During Fairtrade Fortnight all five products will be sold at 20% off their usual price.

The Tesco Fairtrade nuts range has been a tremendous success with over a quarter of all the brazil nuts sold in the Tesco fresh produce department now carrying the FAIRTRADE Mark, the only independent guarantee of a fair deal for farmers in developing countries. More than 13,000 nut farmers in Bolivia, Malawi, Mozambique and India will benefit from these sales.

The chopped brazil and dried apricot product comes in 175g packs and the peanut/cashew/dried mango combination is in 150g packs.The organic dried mango in the new product is supplied by Tropical Wholefoods and is from farming groups in Burkina Faso, West Africa. The dried apricots are also from Tropical Wholefoods and are from Fairtrade growers in Pakistan.

Rosemary Kadzitche, 57, a peanut grower from Malawi whose nuts are being used for one of the new products, says: “Over the past year Fairtrade has already made a difference to our lives. It has brought a better, reliable and more stable market for our peanuts. The Fairtrade premium will help alleviate poverty in the area and it will improve the lives of the entire community when it’s used to pay for more boreholes to be drilled. When we can dig more boreholes we will have cleaner and safer water, fewer diseases and ultimately healthier and better lives.”

Duncan White, Project Director for nuts at Twin Trading says: "The new products are a great, healthy mixture of textures and tastes. Everyone who buys them can be sure they are doing themselves good – and helping farmers on the other side of the world shift their families away from a life of grinding poverty.”

Tesco's buyer in charge of Fresh produce nuts and dried fruit, Kevin Patel, adds: "Tesco took these two new combinations to consumer panels for feedback and they were well received. We fully expect these new products to replicate the success of the others in the range. It is great that Tesco can use its own success to such a positive effect.”

For more information visit www.fairtrade.org.uk