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What's Going On With Vanilla?

24 July 2017

What's Going On With Vanilla?

Having built a decent line in Fairtrade organic vanilla, we recently have had to stop selling it to trade because of supply issues.  At the same time, we’ve been asked by many new customers for vanilla or Fairtrade vanilla.  Everyone’s scrabbling aro...

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2016 - A Truly Weird Year

30 December 2016

2016 - A Truly Weird Year

2016 has been a strange year, with political events intruding on our best efforts at Steenbergs.  These external factors will impact the business for many years to come, and will make everything trickier and riskier.  However, they will not deflect u...

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Dear BT, Are You Still There?

19 September 2016

Dear BT, Are You Still There?

Dear BT

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Brexit, Steenbergs and the future

26 June 2016

Brexit, Steenbergs and the future

While I had been nervously expecting that Brexit result, it's not until you hear it that the impact really hits you.  And while it remains a shock, we must look forward and deal with the additional risks that it throws at us, as well as seek out thos...

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My Thoughts on Wages of Tea Pickers in India

26 September 2015

My Thoughts on Wages of Tea Pickers in India

Tea Plucker in Darjeeling, India

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Declining Cork Farms - The Price of Progress?

24 July 2015

Declining Cork Farms - The Price of Progress?

A copse of cork trees in Alentejo

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Is social media really so benign?

25 June 2012

Is social media really so benign?

The penny finally dropped today about the creeping commercialisation of all of our private conversations and lives.  On the BBC Today programme today, Evan Davies said follow us on Twitter after a piece on Arcelor Mittal in Liberia, which questioned...

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Grants - What A Waste Of Time?

15 November 2011

Grants - What A Waste Of Time?

We have been looking at investing money in automating many of our currently manual processes to include filling, capping and metal detection.  As part of this plan, we had looked into getting some grant support rather than doing it all through extern...

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Youth Unemployment - The Real Issue

13 November 2011

Youth Unemployment - The Real Issue

In amongst all the fantastical numbers that economists bandy around at the moment, there are some frightening figures that get lost in amongst the other seemingly more pressing numbers.  Amongst these, youth unemployment is the most worrying and is p...

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European Bailouts And The Structure Of The Financial System

10 November 2011

European Bailouts And The Structure Of The Financial System

There has been a lot of news recently about European bailouts, sit-ins and protests around St Paul's (there is also an anti-capitalist camp by Grey's Monument in Newcastle and probably elsewhere, but as usual London-Centric news of the UK largely ign...

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Food Waste, Food Poverty And Fareshare

03 October 2011

Food Waste, Food Poverty And Fareshare

Food waste is criminal, so it is brilliant when you hear or read of charities like FareShare that collect and distribute surplus food from retailers that would otherwise be thrown away.  FareShare works closely with companies like M&S, Nestlé and...

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Sustainability and some final thoughts

27 August 2011

Sustainability and some final thoughts

In the end, politics, economics and perhaps even environmentalism are practical matters dressed up as intellectual theory, following on from my previous blog on the theory behind sustainability.

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Is There Any Need For Sustainability?

25 August 2011

Is There Any Need For Sustainability?

I have recently read Tim Jackson's "Prosperity Without Growth - Economics for a Finite Planet".  It proposes that we refocus how we manage our economies to take into account the limits on the earth, but is rather vague exactly how we should do this -...

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Sports And Winning

10 July 2011

Sports And Winning

I read with amusement about the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge competing against each other in a dragonboat race in Quebec and that the Duke won and he reportedly said to Kate "There is no chivalry in sport."  At this time of the year as we seem to mo...

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My Dilemma With The Alternative Vote System

20 February 2011

My Dilemma With The Alternative Vote System

With the impending referendum on the Alternative Vote System, it seemed appropriate to rehash my thoughts on this area.  I had my first foray into considering the election system during the General Election in May 2010, and having favoured the first-...

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Breathe The Air, Relax And Just Be

31 December 2010

Breathe The Air, Relax And Just Be

What have I learnt through my attempts to understand the matrix that we call life, if anything?  What have I learnt by seeking to comprehend ideas that are beyond the wit of man and certain beyond my ken like the origin of species, creation, time, ma...

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We Are All In the Matrix

26 December 2010

We Are All In the Matrix

The matrix shimmers.  The world shifts an iota and your eyes refocus. 

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Should We Encourage People From Countryside To Cities?

11 September 2010

Should We Encourage People From Countryside To Cities?

...Self doubt gets you thinking.  I am still thinking through my concerns about Fairtrade and I wonder whether I've got it arse over tip. 

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A Big Shout Out To Small Business Owners

06 September 2010

A Big Shout Out To Small Business Owners

We, the small business owners and micro-entrepreneurs, are the forgotten, ignored and trodden upon solid foundation of the British, American and every other economy in the world.  We employ most of the employed people and generate much of the new, gr...

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