Back in September of last year, I met Philipp Abel, who is the head of sustainability at Fürth City Council in Germany. He revealed to me that Fürth was twinned with our town Paisley in Scotland and wanted to establish fair trade links between our two towns. Embarrassingly, I didn't know that we were twinned with Fürth but I was delighted that he wanted to create links with us.

The town twinning movement has been going on for at least 50 years. It is such a good idea to create connections between different towns in different countries rather than building walls. It struck me that adding the layer of fair trade to that relationship enhanced it because it meant we were looking outwards to different parts of the world and creating more links.

Since then Philipp and I have met a few times on line and talked about how we can work together through education exchanges and sharing ideas between our fair trade businesses. He also invited me to join in with their 10th anniversary celebrations of Fürth becoming a fair trade city in February 2026.

Philipp talks about his own family story of creating connections between different countries and the work that Fürth have done to promote fair trade in their city.

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This is a heads up of a special podcast episode that we'll be putting out on the 9th February.

I've been recently talking to Philipp Abel, the head of sustainability at Fürth City Council in northern Bavaria, in Germany, about their commitment to fair trade. I met Philipp back in September 2025 at a fair trade towns conference in Edinburgh and discovered that Fürth was twinned with our town Paisley, in Scotland.

We quickly realised that we had a lot in common, particularly with fair trade, and decided to use our twinning links to support each other in the work that we do. One thing that interested me was to hear more about Fürth's and Philipp's stories and to put them out on our podcast in time for Fürth's 10th anniversary as a fair trade city at the beginning of February.

So look out for our next episode of Rainbow Turtle Rebooted, coming out on Monday the 9th of February, about the work that is going on in Fürth, in particular their commitment to purchasing fair trade products as part of their public procurement policy.

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Welcome to episode 4 of our series and this time we're with Emma Hillcoat of Greencity Wholefoods in Glasgow. Emma has got to be the most positive person I've met and when you combine that with a job that matches her personality and ethics, you have the perfect combination. Emma is also a relatively new recruit to Green City and views the workers' cooperative from a fresh perspective. What's also heartening is that Green City is the kind of organisation that attracts young people who are passionate about the environment and trading fairly with producers and farmers in the global south.

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In this edition I interview Howard Msukwa, a rice farmer from Malawi. He is a member of the Kaporo Smallholder Farmer Association in his local area and has been its chair in the past. He has also served as director of The National Smallholder Farmers Association of Malawi and served as its vice chair. Last year at Scottish Fair Trade's conference I was asked by True Origin to put some prepared questions to Howard about food behaviours and how it affected well being in his country. I'm grateful to True Origin in allowing me to use the recording for our podcast.

Howard has been over to Scotland on a number of occasions and is very good at networking and creating links between the two countries. On a previous occasion he met a farmer from Dumfriesshire who agreed to supply his cooperative with tools so that Howard could set up a workshop to train young people in maintenance. On this visit he met an organic farmer from Fife who was talking about sustainability. They were able to share ideas on how to improve farming techniques, though Howard did joke that our concept of a small farmer is much bigger than theirs.

This episode also brings back the dulcet tones of Josh Brown, the original creator of the Rainbow Turtle podcast. He set up and edited this interview with Howard and took over asking the questions when I had to leave the room for another commitment. If you would like to hear more from Josh, head over to our first series and look up episode 5.

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Welcome to episode 2 of our 4th season of Rainbow Turtle Rebooted. In this interview we meet Scott Irwin of Green City Wholefoods in Glasgow. As we mentioned in our last episode, Green City is a workers' cooperative where everyone has an equal vote and receives equal pay. Scott has worked across the organisation for about 29 years and has many interesting stories about what the organisation has achieved over the years.

Scott himself has had a varied career. He is a former monk from the Holy Island, just off the Isle of Arran on the west coast of Scotland. He also helped set up the Glasgow Fair Trade Cooperative. He is passionate about lifting people out of food poverty and has been involved in a number of schemes to influence government policy and change how big business operates.

Before we start, I'd like to give out a shout to the city of Frankfurt Am Main in Germany. I'd been checking our podcast statistics recently and was surprised to find out that our biggest listening figures came from Frankfurt and not Paisley or Glasgow, as I'd expected. So my thanks to you and I'd love to hear from you to find out how you came across our podcast and what it is that makes you our biggest listeners. I enclose my email address, colum@rainbowturtle.org.uk, if you'd like to get in touch. In fact, if anyone else would like to email me, please do so. I'd be interested to hear what you like or dislike about the podcast. Maybe you'd like to appear in one of our episodes?

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In this episode we interview Babs Nicgriogair of Green City Wholefoods in Glasgow. Green City is a worker cooperative where everyone has an equal voice and receives an equal pay, regardless of their role or the length of time that they've been working there. Green City supplies Rainbow Turtle with many of its fair trade foods and drinks and are passionate about their quality vegetarian, organic and fair trade products.

Babs has worked for Green City since 2000 and has carried out most jobs during her time there. She has a particular interest in Coops and talks convincingly about them. She explains about how her work and principles align together giving value to what she does.

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Welcome to series 4 of Rainbow Turtle Rebooted Podcast. This is a short taster to give you an idea of what will be coming up during fair trade fortnight 2025.

Earlier in the year Linda Okhouya Ologe and I went out to meet some of the staff from Green City Wholefoods in the east end of Glasgow. Our interesting interviews with them form the basis of this series.

Our first episode will be with Babs NicGriogor. Babs has worked across the organisation and has a really good understanding of cooperatives and how they work. We also interviewed Scott Irwin, their longest standing employee, who has a great knowledge of the organisation and its history. Finally we meet Emma Hillcoat, the newest member of the team, who talks about working for the cooperative and the difference that it makes in the attitude of staff to their workplace.

In addition, I'll be bringing you an interview that I had with Malawian rice farmer, Howard Msukwa. True Origin asked me to interview Howard 12 months ago, about his thoughts on how better food behaviours can improve wellbeing and increase equity. I was kindly given the recording by True Origin to use for our podcast.

Episode 1 of Series 4 comes out Monday 22nd September with our interview with Babs NicGriogor and I'll be bringing the other episodes out every few days during fair trade fortnight.

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In this episode we introduce you to two more volunteers with the organisation.

First up is Anne Scriven. Anne has been involved in fair trade for a long time, starting with her local church group in Kirkintilloch though to helping out in the Rainbow Turtle shop, various stalls and events.

We finish with Steph Mayo who started out as a community worker helping local women's group who were interested in global issues. This lead to a meeting with Maureen Brough, a long term volunteer with Rainbow Turtle, helped Steph to get involved. Now Steph volunteers in the shop and is a trustee of the charity.

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