Fairtrade versus British

I have been buying a lot of sugar lately for all this jam and I have come across a dilemma of sorts.

Tesco (definitely) and Sainsbury's (I think) sell British Sugar - made less than 30 miles from here, grown in the local fields and supporting local farmers. When I sent the FH into a Co-op the other day, as he was in the other town where there is only a Co-op, he did buy the sugar I asked for, but I was dismayed to see that it was cane sugar and had been carted literally half way around the world.

Yes, it was Fairtrade sugar, but still.... I do support the Co-op in lots of ways and I think that it is a good, ethical supermarket - and I totally support Fairtrade chocolate, coffee and bananas, for example, things we don't grow here. But why can't they stock British food if there is a British version???

The children and I were only talking yesterday about why I love to grow dwarf beans and why I absolutely refuse to buy green beans from Kenya and sweetcorn from Senegal. The sugar saga fits right into that conversation - buy British, please!