I WATCHED GMTV on Friday and learned about Fair Trade products for the first time.

I went to Sainsbury's in Redditch and made an effort to find and buy Fair Trade sugar.

On my way out of the store, I spoke to the manager and asked if he had thought about putting up a small display of Fair Trade products to promote them, especially seeing as it was Live 8 weekend.

His reply was they stocked about only 15 lines and if people looked for them, they usually found them.

I said that was 14 more products than I knew about.

When I got home, I phoned Tesco in Redditch to put the same question to them. The manager said they had to do things corporately through head office and couldn't set up anything on their own unless it was to promote a local product.

How are these poor people going to help themselves if our major supermarkets can't help promote their products with a small display?

What would be wrong with showing head office that a store and its staff can use their initiative?

ALISON GRIMMETT

via e-mail