A series of events celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Fairtrade mark in the UK will be held in Carlisle.

With the theme of this year’s Fairtrade Fortnight being ‘Be The Change’, Carlisle will host events celebrating the miletone having recently secured the renewal of Fairtrade status as a city.

A Carlisle Fairtrade reception with the Mayor – Chris Southward – will be held at the Civic Centre on September 12 at 1.30pm.

This will be followed by a tea party to celebrate Fairtrade and to launch this year’s new theme for the Carlisle One World Centre – Bridging Faith Communities – on September 14 at the Tithe Barn.

Then there will be a quiz to raise funds and awareness for Fairtrade and Carlisle Foodbank on September 15 at the Halston hotel.

Finally, a Fairtrade takeover of Carlisle Park Run will take place on the morning of September 21 at Chances Park, Wigton Road.

The anniversary marks the first time when a Fairtrade-certified product appeared on supermarket shelves across the nation.

It was Green & Black’s Maya Gold Chocolate in 1994, followed by Cafedirect and Percol coffees, and Clipper Tea.

Now, there are over 5,000 Fairtrade products in the UK alone,and millions of farmers and workers in 70 countries are part of 1,930 Fairtrade-certified producer organisations, according to the Fairtrade Foundation.

They added that the certification ensures workers benefit from stable prices, community facilities like education, healthcare, and clean water.

Fairtrade Foundation CEO Mike Gidney said: “We are incredibly excited to be able to mark this very important milestone. Fairtrade is all about building a fairer future for people in low-income countries who grow and make the things we rely on every day: our food, our clothes.

“Thirty years on, we estimate that 10m people, including farmers, workers and their families across Africa, Latin America, and Asia benefit from sales of their products on Fairtrade terms.

“That’s an amazing achievement and is thanks to the increasing dedication of companies in changing the way they trade, driven by huge, unstinting support from the British public.”