Staff at The Co-operative food store, Carmarthen Road, Kilgetty, got up to all sorts of monkey business on Monday to celebrate this year's Fairtrade Fortnight.

Customers in Kilgetty and across the UK were greeted by staff dressed in life-sized gorilla suits and giant banana costumes as the community food retailer demonstrated its commitment to Fairtrade by converting all its bananas to Fairtrade in more than 4,000 stores.

And staff were going bananas to celebrate other major Fairtrade milestones. More than 30 million bottles of wine have now been sold from its market-leading Fairtrade wine range, and this year marks the 10th anniversary since the retailer converted its entire own-brand block chocolate range to Fairtrade.

The event coincided with the start of Fairtrade Fortnight (February 27 to March 11), the annual celebration of Fairtrade aimed at raising awareness of FAIRTRADE Mark products, which guarantees a fair price for producers in developing countries and provides an additional social premium to fund vital community projects.

Chris Perkins, store manager at Kilgetty, said: "It's not every day you find a life-sized gorilla walking around your local grocery store, so hopefully our monkey business will encourage shoppers to stop and think about the global benefits of picking up Fairtrade products locally.

"We were the first retailer to introduce Fairtrade bananas to the UK, but now, as part of our wider ethical plan, we're switching all our bananas to Fairtrade."