Everything has a week or fortnight these days. Last week was Bacon Connoisseurs’ Week, and it was National Chip Week before that. Most are dreamt up by marketing men and can safely be consigned to the “life’s too short” box. But some actually matter. Fairtrade Fortnight (February 25-March 9) is one of them. Fairtrade is a fundamentally good thing. It gives farmers in the developing world a decent price for what they grow and new markets to sell it in. It also ensures good working conditions and pays an additional premium that can be used by the growers to help their communities. It’s not going to make them millionaires, but it does invest in their futures and gives them a shot at long-term sustainability. The Fairtrade market in the UK is now worth more than £400m a year. Globally, that translates as about 7m coffee, tea and cocoa farmers, fruit growers and their families whose lives have been changed for the good.

Smallholder cooperatives are among those who have benefited most, receiving not just money and marketing, but the training they need to run their businesses better. Fatima Lopez, a 27-year-old coffee worker in Nicaragua, is one of those who has gained from a producer partnership programme set up by the pioneer Fairtrade company Cafédirect. After intensive training, and working for several years, Lopez has become head taster for her coop and is a judge at the Nicaraguan coffee awards. More important, she is also helping to train others. It’s good for them, good for business and ultimately good for the quality of their coffee.

If you’re going to be a consumer, it doesn’t hurt to do it with one eye on the plight of your fellow man. Moral dilemmas are about the only things that genuinely come for free in your shopping basket these days. Fairtrade is a good way to solve at least one of them.

www.fairtrade.org.uk

OIL HAVE THAT

I don’t have a lot of flavoured oils knocking around the kitchen, but I’m prepared to make an exception for Ferran Adria. The alchemistic, multi-Michelin-starred chef from El Bulli in Catalonia has teamed up with the olive-oil producer Borges to create eight beautifully aromatic oils, including one infused with lemon zest, another with black, white, pink and sichuan peppercorns, and a soy and ginger version that’s so richly savoury, you could eat it by the spoonful. The purity of flavour is incredible, and if you’re stuck for ways of using them, Adria’s recipes are online (www.aceitesborges.es).

£6.50 for 200ml, from Harvey Nichols

PALACE COUP

Gordon Ramsay opens a dining room at the Trianon Palace hotel in Versailles next month. There’s just one problem: most French people think he is the British prime minister.

TAKE 3

Paul Gayler, the executive chef at the Conservatory restaurant at The Lanesborough, suggests this simple combination. Is it a dip, a sandwich filling or a pasta sauce? You decide.

— 100g soft goat’s cheese
— 3 tbsp pesto
— 1 red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped

Place the goat’s cheese in a bowl and mix to a smooth purée. Add the pesto and chilli and mix together well. Season to taste and serve.

It’s wonderful as a dip for raw vegetables or spread in sandwiches, but you can also stir it into pasta or smear it over grilled chicken.

It will keep for up to three days in a sealed container in the fridge.

The Lanesborough, Hyde Park Corner, SW1; 020 7259 5599

Explore Food & Drink

• Gordon Ramsay

• Heston Blumenthal

• Recipes

• Wine

• Real Food

• Anjum Anand

• Eating Out

• Video Recipes

Times Recommends

• How to season a wok
• Chicago Rib Shack hits back at its critics
• Gordon Ramsay: Indian barbecue