News & Events
April 15th, 2011 |
No Comments 
Fair Trade Farm Employees
About 80% of cut flowers sold in the United States are grown internationally in Latin America, South America, and Africa. Over 300,000 women are employed by flower producers all over the world. More often than not, they are exploited to keep costs low for American and European consumers. These women are often subjected to sexual abuse, human rights violations, exposure to toxic agrochemicals, and extremely dangerous working conditions. In many cases they are not paid for overtime hours, and are lucky to be paid fairly for regular hours worked. Fair Trade changes all of that!
Read full article ››
Tags: Fair Trade Certified Flowers, Fair Trade Flowers
February 27th, 2011 |
Comments Off 
Hollywood Free Clinic Rose Giveaway
Silverlake’s Hollywood Sunet Free Clinic received Fair Trade Certified roses from One World Flowers to participate in the Valentine Peace Project by giving out poems on love and peace from individuals around the world as a community themed Valentine expression. The clinic’s mission is to provide quality health care, mental health services and required ancillary services to the homeless, poverty level and low-income residents of Silver Lake, Echo Park, East Hollywood and neighboring communities of Los Angeles. These communities are in most desperate need; the majority is at the 200% or below Federal Poverty Level. Each rose that was given away came with a poem from the Valentine’s Peace Project. Staff at the clinic celebrated the holiday by giving these out to fellow staff members, visiting patients and close neighbors from February 14-18.
Teresa Padua, director of the clinic said they had “loads of fun” sharing the beautiful roses and moving poems, noting people’s surprised expressions, cheering up work colleagues and individuals who might even have forgotten that it was that time of year!
The Valentine Peace Project works on community activities on love and positive peace in February and in September around the United Nations Peace Day and is working with ethical trade merchants to assist with the developmet of post-conflict region agricultural products as well as peace education, awareness and global community celebration.
Tags: Fair Trade Certified Flowers, fair trade certified roses, fair trade certified valentine's day, hollywood sunset free clinic, One World Flowers
December 29th, 2010 |
5 Comments 
As 2010 comes to a close, we would like to share this great report with you from the Ecuador Fair Trade Association about the positive impacts that Fair Trade Certified flowers have made for workers, their families, and the community. The EFTA is made up of seven flower farms from across the country that together employ more than 1,500 workers. One World Flowers looks forward to working with this group in 2011 to continue growing and expanding the Fair Trade flowers program.
Read full article ››
Tags: benefits of fair trade, Ecuador Fair Trade Association, Fair Trade Certified Flowers, fair trade certified roses, Fair Trade Flowers, fair trade roses, wholesale fair trade flowers
October 15th, 2010 |
No Comments The following post was submitted by Alaina Paradise, owner of One World Flowers, as part of Fair Trade USA’s Fair Trade Month awareness campaign. Click here to see the original post on Fair Trade USA’s blog.
A woman collects roses at a farm in Ethiopia, Africa's second-largest flower exporter after Kenya. Photographer: Jose Cendon/Bloomberg News
Fair Trade CertifiedTM flowers were first introduced to the US market in 2007 when TransFair USA (now Fair Trade USA) began licensing importers for the program. The addition of Fair Trade flowers to the US market was an incredible accomplishment for the producers and licensees who chose to participate in the program. It presented a great opportunity to grow sustainable sales in a new market and make an even bigger impact for floral workers worldwide. The Fair Trade flowers program has seen a good amount of success since its beginnings, but has not yet been able to win the wide-scale market awareness and producer participation as other products such as Fair Trade coffee, fruit, and tea.
Read full article ››
Tags: benefits of fair trade, challenges of fair trade, Fair Trade Certified Flowers, fair trade certified roses, Fair Trade Flowers, fair trade roses, flower logistics, flower shipping, insecticides on roses, One World Flowers, wholesale fair trade flowers
October 10th, 2010 |
4 Comments Sustainability is NOT an environmental concept only. Sustainability also includes people and profitability. If companies are not making money, they cannot be sustained. Also, if people and societies are leached of HUMAN resources, no business is sustained. Fair Trade is the best possible sustainable option for consumers when buying certain products. This post is in response to an article about Fair Trade vs. Carbon Footprints written by Graeme Wiser on the EbioAnt blog. Click here to see the original post.
Read full article ››
Tags: carbon footprint vs. fair trade, carbon vs. fair trade, Fair Trade Certified Flowers, Fair Trade Flowers, wholesale fair trade flowers, Wholesale Flowers
June 11th, 2010 |
1 Comment 
The following article was featured in the Floral Marketing section of The Produce News, June 2010. Click here to view the original article.
BY JOHN S. NIBLOCK
Alaina Paradise is happy to go from zero to 90. That’s the number of customers her One World Flowers import and distributing company has attracted with its Fair Trade offerings in its first two years. The economic skies were cloudy when Ms. Paradise began operations in May 2008, but as she put it, “we could only go up.” Not only were times hard, but she was beginning a new company with a premium product yet to find a reliable niche in retail markets.
One World Flowers is a licensed importer of Fair Trade flowers from Ecuador and Colombia. The company sells them nationwide to supermarkets, co-op grocers, and retail florists who have customers looking for more than just green options in the floral department. “More consumers are becoming aware of the human rights issues surrounding the products they buy,” said Ms. Paradise, “and they’re learning to look for labels that take care of people as well as the environment.”
The Fair Trade label is what Ms. Paradise calls a “complete sustainability” label. It guarantees not only environmental protection, but also human rights standards. Components include controls on pesticide use, safe working conditions, and fair wages for workers. “A big part of the Fair Trade program is direct and long-term relationships between the farms and importers,” Ms. Paradise stated in a phone interview. “We work together in marketing initiatives, sales efforts and in daily operations.”
Read full article ››
Tags: Fair Trade Certified Flowers, fair trade events, Fair Trade Flowers, fair Trade in the U.S., fair trade in the United States, green flowers, One World Flowers, The Produce News, wholesale fair trade certified roses, wholesale fair trade flowers, wholesale fair trade roses, Wholesale Flowers, wholesale roses
May 31st, 2010 |
2 Comments 
Customers got free Fair Trade roses at City Market
The City Market / Onion River Coop in Burlington, Vermont recently delighted customers with an in-store promotion of Fair Trade Certified™ Flowers. By teaming up with One World Flowers, City Market gave away 100 free Fair Trade roses to customers who came in to shop. The roses each had a custom tag on them that educated customers about the benefits of Fair Trade for flower farms in developing nations.
“The promotion helped raise awareness of the Fair Trade flowers that we carry,” said James, City Market’s Produce Manager. “It’s a great way to promote a socially sustainable product around big floral holidays.” The increased awareness of the flowers translates into higher and more consistent sales at the store.
One World Flowers routinely supports Fair Trade flower promotional activities at retail customers’ locations to educate consumers and raise awareness of the availability and benefits of Fair Trade Flowers. For more information about special promotional activities, please contact the Marketing department at One World Flowers: (505) 489-1117.
Tags: Fair Trade Certified Flowers, Fair Trade Flowers, wholesale fair trade flowers, wholesale fair trade roses, Wholesale Flowers, wholesale roses
February 24th, 2010 |
2 Comments 
Fair Trade is a market-based system. This means that Fair Trade Certified products utilize the same rules of supply and demand as any other product. The men and women that make Fair Trade Certified products work hard to receive a fair wage, and Fair Trade ensures that they receive these fair wages*. Fair Trade Certified producers are also empowered by the Fair Trade system to form cooperatives that enable them to create sustainable working and living conditions within their communities. Through these democratic cooperatives, producers are able to make sound economic decisions as a democratic group, deciding, for example, where to invest money in order to better their products and their communities. The cooperatives also allow producers to receive benefits they might not otherwise receive, such as scholarships to send their children to school, access to medical clinics, and credit to invest in their futures.
Read full article ››
Tags: Fair Trade Certified Flowers, fair Trade in the U.S., Fair Trade Month
January 25th, 2010 |
4 Comments 
“The flower of peace grows in the fertile soil of justice.”
Imagine receiving a poem or message of peace or love to you from someone in your community or someone else in the world. Through poetry and reflection, the Valentine Peace Project encourages actions on peace leading up to and on the worldwide holiday of love – Valentine’s Day. The Valentine Peace Project is a growing initiative in many cities around the United States including San Francisco, New York, and Chicago. Students and other submit poems of peace and love that are tied to flowers and given out around the Valentine’s Day holiday. One World Flowers has partnered with the Valentine Peace Project this year to provide carnations and Fair Trade Certified roses for the events!
Read full article ››
January 7th, 2010 |
12 Comments 
When you buy Fair Trade Certified products, you help families like this one, member of the CECOVASA co-op in Peru, hold on to their land.
You already know that buying Fair Trade is good for farmers and good for the earth, but here’s yet another reason to feel good about your Fair Trade purchases: by making traditional small-scale agriculture in the developing world more profitable, Fair Trade helps farming families stay on their land. As big commercial companies encroach on the land that was once farmed exclusively by small family operations, it becomes extremely difficult for these families to compete.
Fair Trade helps small farmers successfully participate in the global market by facilitating direct trade relationships. Importers purchase from Fair Trade producer groups as directly as possible, eliminating unnecessary middlemen and empowering farmers to develop the business capacity necessary to compete in the global marketplace. Additionally, Fair Trade provides farmers with the market information necessary to be savvy producers. The Fair Trade minimum price gives farmers market information, financial stability, and access to credit, all of which contribute to farmers’ market success.
With each Fair Trade product you buy, you help a family hold on to their home. What better reason do you need?
This post is reprinted from TransFair USA, www.fairtrademonth.org.
Tags: Fair Trade Certified, Fair Trade Certified Flowers, Fair Trade Farmers, Fair Trade Flowers, wholesale fair trade flowers
