Sher Ghazi's company supply the apricots we sell in the Oxfam shop as displayed in the basket in the first photo, including:

• Sun dried apricots
• Apricot Geobars
• Divine chocolate coated apricots
• Mountain apricot kernels 

Sher is Chief Executive of Mountain Fruits Ltd, Hunza, North Pakistan. The Fairtrade Mark has been of great benefit to his area.  Deciding how to spend the social premium has enhanced co-operation between communities and advanced the participation of women.  He thanks you for your support.

Brief Biography

Sher Ghazi was born in the town of Hunza in the Karakoram Mountains of Northern Pakistan.  After graduating in food technology he joined the Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP) in 1990 as a Project Forester.  AKRSP is a charitable foundation that works to improve the lives of people in the mountains of N. Pakistan.  As an orchard owner and fruit grower himself, Sher decided to research the potential for the production and marketing of high quality dried apricots and other fruits.  These apricots grow between 4,500 and 9.500 feet on the pure mountain environment, bordering the Himalayas during long summer days on soil fed by glacial melt water.  The temperatures can soar to 47 degrees C and plunge to minus 12 in winter.

UK based Tropical Wholefoods began working with Sher in 1997. In 2000, a training project was started.  The company in Pakistan became Mountain Fruits Ltd in 2004.  It now works with over 2000 families and employs over 100 female workers in the factory, the only place in the area where women can work, due to cultural barriers.