Rainbow Turtle Rebooted Fair Trade Podcast

Back in September of last year, I met Philipp Abel, who is the head of sustainability at Fürth City Council in Germany. He revealed to me that Fürth was twinned with our town Paisley in Scotland and wanted to establish fair trade links between our two towns. Embarrassingly, I didn't know that we were twinned with Fürth but I was delighted that he wanted to create links with us.  The town twin...

This is a heads up of a special podcast episode that we'll be putting out on the 9th February.  I've been recently talking to Philipp Abel, the head of sustainability at Fürth City Council in northern Bavaria, in Germany, about their commitment to fair trade. I met Philipp back in September 2025 at a fair trade towns conference in Edinburgh and discovered that Fürth was twinned with our...

Welcome to episode 4 of our series and this time we're with Emma Hillcoat of Greencity Wholefoods in Glasgow. Emma has got to be the most positive person I've met and when you combine that with a job that matches her personality and ethics, you have the perfect combination. Emma is also a relatively new recruit to Green City and views the workers' cooperative from a fresh perspectiv...

In this edition I interview Howard Msukwa, a rice farmer from Malawi. He is a member of the Kaporo Smallholder Farmer Association in his local area and has been its chair in the past. He has also served as director of The National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi and served as its vice chair. Last year at Scottish Fair Trade's conference I was asked by True Origin to put some prepare...

Welcome to episode 2 of our 4th season of Rainbow Turtle Rebooted. In this interview we meet Scott Irwin of Green City Wholefoods in Glasgow. As we mentioned in our last episode, Green City is a workers' cooperative where everyone has an equal vote and receives equal pay. Scott has worked across the organisation for about 29 years and has many interesting stories about what the organisation h...

In this episode we interview Babs Nicgriogair of Green City Wholefoods in Glasgow. Green City is a worker cooperative where everyone has an equal voice and receives an equal pay, regardless of their role or the length of time that they've been working there. Green City supplies Rainbow Turtle with many of its fair trade foods and drinks and are passionate about their quality vegetarian, organ...

Welcome to series 4 of Rainbow Turtle Rebooted Podcast. This is a short taster to give you an idea of what will be coming up during fair trade fortnight 2025.  Earlier in the year Linda Okhouya Ologe and I went out to meet some of the staff from Green City Wholefoods in the east end of Glasgow. Our interesting interviews with them form the basis of this series. Our first episode will be with Babs...

In this episode we introduce you to two more volunteers with the organisation. First up is Anne Scriven. Anne has been involved in fair trade for a long time, starting with her local church group in Kirkintilloch though to helping out in the Rainbow Turtle shop, various stalls and events. We finish with Steph Mayo who started out as a community worker helping local women's group who were inte...

In this mini episode we meet our education officer, Linda Okhuoya Ologe. Linda has been on maternity leave for this past year and, just before fair trade fortnight, I popped round to Linda's house to interview her and to hold her new baby, Zoraya! As well as talking about fair trade, Linda spoke about an interesting project that she'd been involved in to bring fair trade coffee beans fro...

In episode 6 of our current series we meet 3 more volunteers from Rainbow Turtle. First up is Kitty McEachen, an escapee from Glasgow who, to her surprise, found that Paisley wasn't such a bad place to live in, especially when she came upon Rainbow Turtle and some of the committed volunteers, including the inspiring founder, Liz Cotton. Next we have Duncan Macintosh, a long term supporter of...

In episode 5 of series 3 of our podcast we meet Elise Kelly, our creative shop manager. Elise has been in charge for about three and a half years. She joined us when we were just coming out of covid when things were tight and sales were poor. During that time Elise has transformed Rainbow Turtle shop into a bright and colourful place to come and buy fair trade products.  After Elise we have Jonath...

In this episode we introduce you to Joyce Jackson who started out as a fair trade stall holder in her local church before being inveigled into volunteering at the shop by Liz Cotton when she retired 7 or 8 years ago. Following Joyce we have Clotilde Raydon, who 6 years ago came into the shop to get some refills for cleaning products. After a couple of visits, Liz Cotton, the then manager and direc...

In this episode we meet Juliet Robb of Olive Tree, a charity that buys products from crafts people in Palestine and then sells them in Scotland. The money provides the artisans with a living and any profits made from the sales goes to support charities in Palestine. Juliet first thought about working with people from Palestine after a trip to the Holy Land. At the end of the trip, the minister sai...

In this mini episode, we meet long standing Rainbow Turtle volunteers: Gillian Henry, Roisin Mulholland and Maureen Brough. In it they share why fair trade is important to them and what are their favourite products that they can buy in the shop. Unsurprisingly, chocolate and coffee feature high on their lists! Email us on info@rainbowturtle.org.uk Audio track that introduces all episodes Audio cli...

Michael Gidney, currently the chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, has worked for at least 30 years in international development (which corresponds nicely with the 30th anniversary of FT movement in UK). He started out as a teacher in Kenya and then for their children's services in an orphanage, has worked with Voluntary Services Overseas and with Amnesty International. He joined Trai...

Welcome to series 3 of Rainbow Turtle Rebooted the podcast that brings you the people and their stories from the world of fair trade. In this series we interview Michael Gidney, the chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, the organisation that oversees fair trade in the UK. We also meet Juliet Robb, the founder of Olive Tree, the charity that buys goods from artisans in the holy land in order...

In this episode I am delighted to be talking with Rachel Farey of the One World Shop in Edinburgh. It's a beautiful shop positioned at the western end of Princes Street in Edinburgh with the historic castle as a backdrop. Rachel has had an interesting journey that started with working with L'Arche after she left school. L'arche is an international federation of Non-profit organisati...

In this episode we are playing a recording of a talk by Sally Sawaya of Meru Herbs in Kenya that she gave recently to the staff of True Origin and Rainbow Turtle in Paisley, Scotland. Sally is the managing director of Meru Herbs, the Kenyan fair trade company that produces tasty sauces, jams and herbal teas. Meru is a semi arid region of the country where, for many years, water was hard to obtain...

In this episode we meet Mary Popple the current chair of JTS , the company that imports fair trade goods into Scotland and distributes them throughout the UK. Mary grew up in Northern Ireland during the 50s and 60s on the border between the republic and the north. Her father was a church minister who tried not to take sides and, as tensions increased, took his family to Scotland. Those early years...

In this episode we bring you part 2 of the John Riches interview. (If you've not heard it, do check out part 1 where John talks about his early life and influences.) We join John where he talks about setting up the Balmore Trust and The Coach House, instruments that were used to generate funds for overseas projects. Very quickly they got involved in buying products from people in small commun...

In this episode, John tells interesting stories of working in a refugee camp in Austria after the 2nd world war, of being a chaplain at Cambridge University at the height of the student protests in the late 60s; working in the Transkei in South Africa during the apartheid era and meeting anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko. He covers his time at Glasgow University teaching about the new testament...

This short taster introduces Series 2 of the podcast. In this new series we'll be bringing you interviews with John Riches founder of JTS , Mary Popple of the St. Andrews Fair Trade Group and current chair of JTS and the Alternative Coffee Co. an exciting project that links fair trade speciality coffee farmers from Uganda and Rwanda with micro coffee roasters in the UK. Email us on info@rainb...

We have another throwback podcast for you where we're back to fair trade fortnight in 2016 and to Josh Brown's original Rainbow Turtle podcast series. This is part 2 of the episode that we re-released back in the beginning of January.  In this part, Josh interviews Martin Rhodes and Graham Clark of the Scottish Fair Trade Forum at their AGM, where he also meets fair trade campaigner, Mar...

This episode takes us back to February 2016 to the very first Rainbow Turtle podcast which was previously thought to be lost. Part 1 of this episode takes us on a fair trade journey: It starts with founder, Liz Cotton, talking to school pupils. It then chats to attendees at the Scottish Fair Trade Forum AGM, Before Ross Beattie looks at fair trade in Uzbekistan and Lynsay Bellshaw talks about her...

Welcome to this special Christmas episode of the Rainbow Turtle Rebooted podcast where I’m delighted to be able to interview Pauline Tiffen of the Journal of Fair Trade. Ever since I started this series I have been trying to get Pauline onto it. I first heard her speak at a Scottish Fair Trade Forum lecture back in the summer of 2020, at the height of lock down, when she spoke about the future of...