The Foods that make Billions

Last night I watched the first episode of a fascinating new three part documentary, ‘The Food that makes Billions.’ It explores how companies have made billions branding and selling everyday items, such as water, cereal and yoghurt. The big question in last night’s programme was, is it right to be making money from selling water when millions of people across the world don’t have access to clean water? And then there is the absurdity in bottling water in one country and shipping it to another country, in a plastic bottle.

Amongst the Evian and Pure Life, however, was One Water. One Water comes at the market from a totally different angle as they are part of a charity that works with communities in Africa to address their humanitarian needs. What a fantastic idea! I suggest looking out for this when you next get thirsty, and you will be helping an African family have safe drinking water. It also reminded me of a few years ago when I did conservation work in Honduras. I helped with a recycling project while I was there, sorting through plastic bottles that had been left in the recycling bins, or collected from the beach. Bottled water was necessary there, compared to at home, but the bottles still made a horrible mess - it wasn't a fun job.

www.onedifference.org

Pretty Sweaty Betty

I’ve known about sportswear brand Sweaty Betty for a long time, but I had never bought anything from the brand until now. It was when I was doing some research on retail entrepreneurs that I came across Tamara Hill-Norton, the founder of Sweaty Betty and this led me to the website. Sweaty Betty sells comfortable, stylish clothing under the headings, ‘sweat’, ‘yoga’, ‘beach’ and ‘snow’ and works with the purpose to ‘inspire women to find empowerment through fitness’. It is refreshing to find performance active wear without the big labels and logos. Indeed it was the story behind Tamara Hill-Norton and Sweaty Betty which really enamoured me to the brand, a brand started in the UK by a woman who knows what women want. Hill-Norton opened the first Sweaty Betty shop in 1998 in West London on a small budget, and by 2008 they had 24 shops. The business is still run by Hill-Norton and her husband. On my visit to the site I bought this ski jacket and the customer service was great. I’m going snowboarding for the first time next year and thought buying a jacket in the sale would be a good plan. Sure I may hate the snow and never go again, but if we have a winter like last year I’ll be very glad of my purchase! It’s an investment. I’m also a regular (reasonably) at the gym and will be snapping up the cute gym outfits as soon as I save some more cash. I’d like to say it doesn’t matter what you look like at the gym, but if you look good and feel comfortable, it’s sure to affect your performance, right?

No Logo: 10 years on

The international bestseller, ‘No Logo’ exposed the bitter truth behind global brands. A decade on, how has the fashion industry changed?

Uncovering the truth behind the brands, No Logo has become a cultural manifesto of the anti-globalisation movement since its publication in 1999. But has anti-capitalism thrived in the last decade? Or have consumers just got sucked in deeper?

The full article can be found at http://runninginheels.co.uk/articles/nologo/

If you haven’t read No Logo it’s well worth a look. It was published at a time when brands were booming, and an anti-consumerist movement was gearing up to fight back. It highlighted the issues behind the shiny exterior of well known global brands, particularly the people involved in sweatshop labour.

Writing this article was really interesting because it made me go back to the book and consider what had actually changed. I think branding is still hugely important and prevalent, but with the huge surge in value retailers like Primark, is it all that important to the consumer anymore? We’ve moved more into a society where people boast about their latest Primarni bargain, and sometimes names and logos are a bit naff.

Then there’s the issue with sweatshops. With huge companies manufacturing in hundreds of factories worldwide and holding the power to move to a different factory at the drop of a hat, it’s no surprise that the sweatshop culture grew. The question is, how much did the Western retailers really know? Or did they turn a blind eye? The media coverage of such practices in the last ten years has really put pressure on brands to buck their ideas up and many now have special teams responsible for ethics and corporate social responsibility. As I say at the end of the article, brands have a huge power over us as consumers; they should use that power for good, and communicate something worth knowing, like where our clothes really come from.