8th Day News
The Eighth Day Christmas Calendar Giveaway.
The 24 Days of Christmas!
It’s nearly the end of the year again and to thank you, our customers, for supporting us through the year we’ve decided to reward you for using our independent business. From December the 1st until the 24th we’re giving you the chance to win a prize every day. We’ll be uploading a new calendar window picture (just like the one below) from our Christmas Calendar to Facebook and Twitter every day at 9am.
To take a look at all the Calendar pictures and to take a look at the prizes, take a look at the the short video teaser.
All you have to do to be in with a chance to win the days prize is Re-tweet and Favourite the picture and post on Twitter or Like and Share the status on Facebook. We’ll pick the winner entirely at random after 3pm every day and then reveal the prize and the winner before 5pm that day. We’ve got some great little prizes as well as some great star prizes, culminating in a fantastic Christmas Eve hamper so get Liking, Sharing and Tweeting for your chance to win. Whilst the “giveaway” is open to everyone, you must be able to pick your prize up from the Shop and prizes are not exchangeable for cash or alternative gifts, so please bear this in mind if you enter, as we would hate to disappoint anyone.
So, good luck to everyone who enters and thanks for all your support.
From everyone at The Eighth Day Co-operative.
Fin Free Manchester
We were recently asked by the organisation Fin Free Manchester if we would lend support to their Manchester base of the global Fin Free campaign. We immediately agreed, as a vegetarian business we don’t condone the killing of any animal to provide food, as an ethical and environmentally aware business we knew we had to support Fin Free and take action. To us this wasn’t just about the extremely profitable practice of hunting sharks to satisfy the need for expensive delicacies it also raised questions about the irreparable damage to our eco-systems that is occurring now in the pursuit of profit.
Fin Free was designed and is spearheaded by United Conservationists (UC), a not-for-profit organisation founded by Sharkwater filmmaker Rob Stewart and operated by Executive Director, Julie Andersen. It is an open-source campaign, supported by a variety of organisations such as Shark Angels and Shark Truth.
The global campaign aims to stop or drastically reduce the sale of the expensive delicacy, shark fin soup and therefore the killing of an estimated 100-200 million sharks per year many of which are often only targeted for their fins with the rest of the shark being thrown back into the sea to die. Only the fins are kept because shark fins are now one of the most expensive seafood items in the world. Shark fins are valued at around 500 Euros per kilo, whilst the rest of the shark meat is worth only 10 Euros per kilo. As a result, it is economically beneficial to use the limited space on a vessel to store a high-priced product such as fins than it is to fill it with the low-priced meat of the sharks’ body.
While most people are aware of the plight of the more charismatic ocean creatures, like dolphins, turtles and whales, few know of the shark’s current fate. Sharks are disappearing at an alarming rate – their numbers down by 95% in some regions – with many species facing extinction during our lifetimes. Many don’t know about this issue, because it happens so far away. We assume sharks are protected in marine reserves or that it is some other country’s problem when fact many countries in the EU are responsible for catching sharks and the demand for shark fin soup in Asia is suspected to be a major cause of the alarming decline of blue sharks off the British coast and much of the Atlantic.
We need to remember that sharks keep our largest and most important ecosystem healthy, our existence, in part, is dependent on theirs. Sharks have sat atop the oceans’ food chain, keeping our seas healthy and balanced for 450 million years. Without them, the oceans could topple. Remove sharks from the oceans and we are tampering with primary food and air sources. They are a critical component in an ecosystem that provides 1/3 of our world with food, produces more oxygen than all the rainforests combined, removes half of the atmosphere’s manmade carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas), and controls our planet’s temperature and weather. As the apex predators of the oceans, the role of sharks is to keep other marine life in healthy balance and to regulate the oceans. Remove sharks and that balance is upset. Studies are already indicating that regional elimination of sharks can cause disastrous effects including the collapse of fish stocks and the death of coral reefs. Studies in Belize have shown reef systems falling into extreme decline when the sharks have been over-fished, destroying an entire ecosystem, as the sharks food sources grow in population unchecked affecting populations of other sea creatures and organisms such as coral reefs.
All for a bowl of soup.
Shark fin soup, a traditional cultural delicacy has been a highlight at important occasions such as corporate banquets, weddings and New Year’s celebrations for centuries. But over the last 30 years the number of people estimated to eat shark fin soup has risen from a few million in the 1980’s to more than 300 million today. Shark fin is a tasteless ingredient in this culturally important soup and is highly sought after due to its association with health, prosperity and good fortune, it can be bought in Manchester from around 8 restaurants and while the supplies are plummeting, the demand is at an all-time high.
With no international laws that are effective in stopping the destruction of sharks and with no governing bodies assigned to implement them, let alone enforce them, sharks will continue to be hunted until we all do our own part and stop creating demand.
What can you do?
Avoid eating shark fin soup.
Sign the Fin Free Manchester petition here
Join the twitter campaign and follow: @finfreemanc
Spread the word.
Manchester Bag It Campaign
We aim to ban free plastic carrier bags and reduce waste by encouraging consumers to re-use their bags.
On the Eighth Day Co-operative
“8th Day Co-operative exists to encourage the optimum health of its customers and staff by providing quality vegetarian food and advice, whilst maintaining a caring, sustainable, democratic and ethical business environment for its workers.”
It’s with that spirit that 7 years ago the co-op decided to ban the supply of plastic carrier bags to our customers to promote a better environment for the present and the future.
Drawing on our own experiences and taking inspiration from other environmentally aware cities around the world which have already imposed either a ban or a levy on the supply of retail plastic bags we think that Manchester, a forward thinking city in so many ways, needs to go much further on this issue.
We have already consulted some Manchester Councillors about this issue. The two main opposing issues that the council has against banning retail plastic bags are:
- The response from a Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority spokesperson is that whilst they are supportive of the principle of reducing plastic waste by imposing either a ban or a levy, they are not aware of any powers that a UK local authority could use to enforce such a ban. “The GMCA does not have legislative powers itself. Creating Parliamentary legislation as we did with the Manchester Act to control street trading proved immensely time consuming and costly and we were potentially up against individual street traders. To take on the supermarkets, would be a monster which I suspect no government would even be keen to do.”
- Research carried out by the Scrutiny Committee for the council in a specific Manchester area showed that the idea of banning or a levy on plastic bags wasn’t accepted by the majority of retailers due to fears that customers would get upset. On those grounds the Scrutiny Committee decided that it wasn’t possible to ban plastic carrier bags.
We have been advised by some councillors to present an e-petition to Manchester City Council proposing a Ban of Retail Plastic Carrier Bags or at the very least the introduction of a levy so that free carrier bags are no longer acceptable or available.
But before that, we think it would be most appropriate to put the proposition to public opinion and open consultation. It’s at this grassroots level where the campaign should start as it’s important that people understand the issue and the proposals and more importantly that they agree.
We would like everyone to discuss this issue: schools, local retail businesses and organisations, to analyse the options and opinions, we then propose to send an e-petition about the issue to Manchester City Council in October 2013 and put this issue firmly on the table for Manchester City Council.
With that purpose in mind we are going to take as our main tool the very successful Bag It Campaign, which has a very wide source of information available. You can use all the resources by visiting their website.
During the next year we would like to schedule four events:
- A discussion with other organisations to set up the e-petition in October 2013
- Launch of an e-petition by October 2013.
- A Public Debate in January 2014
- An artistic installation held in the Café
In addition to these events we will be scheduling screenings throughout Manchester of the film Bag It as well as other environmental related documentaries and campaign films.
To start with we have shared this post on our blog, we hope this will provoke discussion regarding the use of plastic bags and promote ideas to assist with our campaign. We will also be setting up a Facebook site where interested parties can share ideas and co-ordinate events and will notify everyone when this goes live.
We hope to encourage other partner organisations and local businesses to get involved, share idea and join the campaign to take action
The aim is to free Manchester from the waste created by the supply of free plastic bags and promote the re-use of bags across all retail businesses.
We hope our actions will demonstrate to Manchester City Council that is actually possible to change the policy on these issues by listening to the opinions of everyone and not just considering corporate interests.
You can join in the process now by:
- Organising a Bag It film screening.
- Sending letters to your local retailers asking them act now by banning free plastic carrier bags.
- Sharing this information.
- Re-using your own bags.
For more information, please contact us to BagIt@eighth-day.co.uk
Or follow our Facebook campaign.
Wall Of Beans
Here is a table of past performance for the Suma-branded beans (and tomatoes) which make up the wall. They are all organic, come in 400g tins, and are all currently 49p a tin apart from the baked beans which are 59p.
Say No to Tesco!
Tesco have acquired the old Kro 2 site adjacent to the former BBC building on Oxford Rd. This will be the 7th Tesco store in Manchester city centre alone, and is less than a third of a mile away from an existing Tesco on the same street!
At Eighth Day, we are objecting to Tesco’s application for an alocohol license, on the basis that Oxford Road Manchester M17 ED lies within the Council’s Cumulative Impact Area, and enabling the premises to sell alcohol would be totally detrimental to its aims and objectives. The application proposes that alcohol will be sold for consumption off the premises between 6:00am and 11:00pm, seven days a week. Granting a license would provide a further source of alcohol within an area already so heavily populated with licensed premises that crime, disorder and public nuisance have already reached problem levels for the local police.
Please take a look at our letter of objection and feel free to print off a copy and send it to the address at the top of the page if you are similarly concerned by this prospect. We also have hard copies in store that you can sign and post.
For further information of local campaigns against Tesco nationwide, visit http://www.tescopoly.org/
Many thanks,
Eighth Day Co-operative.
Fair Tax Mark
We’re now an accredited Fair Tax Mark business.
As a workers's co-op, we like to try to do things a little differently and this definitely affects the way we approach business. For instance, it's important to us that we pay fair wages to our workers, deal with our suppliers in a fair and honest way and we've always believed that the payment of taxes, which support so many of our public services is the right and proper thing to do. Tax avoidance or creative tax practices have been a focus of the news for some time now and as these practices are something of an anathema to us, when we heard of an organisation that helped businesses become more tax transparent, we were definitely interested!
To cut a long story short, over the past few months we've been working with an organisation based in Manchester called Fair Tax Mark Ltd, a not-for-profit Community Benefit Society that provides an accreditation process for businesses who want to be open and transparent about their tax practices.
Here's a short extract from the Fair Tax Mark website about their aims and how they work:
"We think tax matters: it helps to fund vital public goods and services and when paid fairly, it ensures a level playing field for businesses large and small.
That’s why we want a future where all businesses are proud to pay their fair share of tax. Because tax affects us all, we think companies should report on their tax practices transparently so we can understand how they’re contributing.
We’re proud to celebrate those businesses doing the right thing by awarding them the Fair Tax Mark, and we work with other companies to help them improve their practices, moving towards a fairer economy for all.
How we work
Our Fair Tax Mark accreditation scheme rewards businesses that are good taxpayers. It’s the only scheme of its kind in the UK, bridging the gap between corporate responsibility and the wider tax justice movement.
- We work with technical experts and other stakeholders to outline the standards that businesses need to reach in order to become Fair Tax accredited
- We work with businesses of all sizes from independent high street shops to large multinationals to help them achieve those standards
- We work to raise public awareness of the Fair Tax Mark and accredited businesses in order to bring Fair Tax businesses and consumers together
- We also provide bespoke research and consultancy services
You can find out more here: Fair Tax Mark
We’re pleased to announce that on the 29thth of June 2017 we passed the accreditation process and gained the Fair Tax Mark. We’re really proud to be part of a group of like-minded businesses that is tax transparent and pays its fair share of tax.
You can find out more about our ethics here: Our Tax Policy
The Living Wage Foundation
We think a Living Wage matters!
That’s why when we heard about The Living Wage Foundation, an organisation that actively monitored and calculated what a person needs to earn per hour in order to have enough income to live on, we decided to investigate further. We liked the recommendations, however for about 4 or 5 years, whilst we matched or exceeded the Living Wage recommendations that the foundation set when we implemented our annual wage reviews, we didn’t pursue the accreditation part.
Over the years though, customers contacted us asking about our wage structure and whether we were accredited and we realised that it is all very well matching our wages to the foundations recommendations, but as an ethical business we needed to go a step further. It became apparent that as we were already taking a stand against the low wage economy by paying the Living Wage, it was crucial that we publically showed our support for the organisation that had long campaigned for positive social change in the form of wage reform .
So bearing all this in mind, we recently we went through the process of accreditation and are now a Living Wage employer, this guarantees all workers, including any agency staff a business may have are paid £8.45 (or £9.75 London Weighting rate) or higher per hour. Paying the Living Wage is definitely a positive thing for us, it shows our workers that they are valued and research shows that feeling valued by your employer is very important for maintaining staff morale and personal self-esteem. We hope that by being open about our wages and emphasising the positivity to be gained by the businesses who choose to pay the Living Wage we’ll encourage discussion in workplaces and other hopefully other businesses will follow suit.
You can find out more about The Living Wage Foundation here:
