As Fairtrade Fortnight kicks off, Joe Wicks’ favourite organic coconut oil brand Lucy Bee shares a delicious and ethical recipe
At Lucy Bee, being ethical and sustainable is the foundation of our company. Lucy Bee is certified Fair Trade by the Fair Trade Sustainability Alliance (FairTSA) and this brings with it a wealth of ethics too.
A lot of people ask us ‘Why buy Fair Trade?’ but for us it’s more of a question of ‘why wouldn’t you buy Fair Trade?’ By being certified with the Fair Trade Sustainability Alliance, we are ensuring that our producers, farmers, workers and their families benefit from fair wages, contracts and good working conditions. You can also be sure that there is absolutely NO child labour or animal cruelty involved in the production of Lucy Bee.
In the wild, monkeys love to collect coconuts as they get the reward and freedom of being able to break them open and drink the water. Sadly, for some coconut oils that are not certified Fair Trade, humans use the monkeys for harvesting the coconuts – the monkeys are chained up living in cages in awful living conditions. They are then forced to collect the coconuts and the reward of the coconut is taken away from them. You can be sure when buying Lucy Bee Coconut Oil that this categorically does not happen.
Through our Fair Trade premiums, and contributions from our customers, we have helped the communities which supply our products, in various ways – by supplying solar power, school scholarships and fresh water; in the Philippines, we have been able to contribute to building two wells to provide clean, safe, fresh water for the villages; prior to this they had to walk for over two hours to get this.
Leading ethical and environmental magazine, Ethical Consumer recently voted Lucy Bee Coconut Oil as the ‘Best Buy’, for coconut oil in the UK market. Their ethical product guide for coconut oil covers the social and environmental records of companies. We came out as the winner for the most ethical coconut oil with a score of 18/20 (the remaining 2 product sustainability points are not achievable in our sector).
Fairtrade recipe: Quinoa Rainbow Bowl
Serves 2
Gluten-free/wheat-free
This works well if you eat it cold, so it’s a good one to throw together in the evening and take to work with you the next day.
Ingredients
100g quinoa
1 tbsp. Lucy Bee coconut oil, plus a little extra for the halloumi
60g chorizo, chopped
1 green chilli, deseeded and diced
1 yellow pepper, deseeded and chopped
1 red pepper, deseeded and chopped
6 long-stem broccoli florets, each chopped into 3 pieces
Handful of parsley, chopped
100g halloumi, thinly sliced
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
Lucy Bee Himalayan salt and ground black pepper
Method
Cook the quinoa according to the packet instructions.
Melt the coconut oil in a deep frying pan over a medium-high heat and, when hot, add the chorizo, chilli, yellow and red pepper and broccoli.
Fry for 5 minutes or until cooked to your liking, stirring occasionally.
Turn the heat down to low and add the cooked quinoa, then stir and leave for a few minutes to allow the quinoa to absorb the oil from the chorizo. Season (bearing in mind the chorizo and halloumi are both salty) and stir in the parsley.
Divide the mixture between 2 plates or one big serving dish.
Place the frying pan back over a medium-high heat, add a very small amount of coconut oil, and, when hot, place the halloumi slices in the pan and cook for about 2 minutes on each side until turning golden, then place over the quinoa mixture.
Mix the lemon juice with the olive oil and drizzle over the halloumi and quinoa to serve.
Find out more about Lucy's commitment to Fairtrade in her video
Recipe extracted from Coconut Oil: Recipes for Real Life by Lucy Bee (Quadrille £15)
Photography: Dan Jones
MORE GLOSS: Discover more recipes containing coconut oil in our list of recipes by Joe Wicks