
Equal Exchange is a for-profit,
Fairtrade
A fair trade certification is a product certification within the market-based movement fair trade. The most widely used fair trade certification is FLO International's, the International Fairtrade Certification Mark, used in Europe, Africa, As ...
worker-owned cooperative headquartered in
West Bridgewater, Massachusetts
West Bridgewater is a town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, Plymouth County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 7,707 at the 2020 census.
History
West Bridgewater was first settled in 1651 as a part of Olde Bridgewater. The town ...
. Equal Exchange distributes
organic
Organic may refer to:
* Organic, of or relating to an organism, a living entity
* Organic, of or relating to an anatomical organ
Chemistry
* Organic matter, matter that has come from a once-living organism, is capable of decay or is the product ...
, gourmet
coffee
Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world.
S ...
,
tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by pouring hot or boiling water over cured or fresh leaves of '' Camellia sinensis'', an evergreen shrub native to East Asia which probably originated in the borderlands of southwestern China and northe ...
,
sugar
Sugar is the generic name for sweet-tasting, soluble carbohydrates, many of which are used in food. Simple sugars, also called monosaccharides, include glucose, fructose, and galactose. Compound sugars, also called disaccharides or double ...
,
bananas,
avocados,
cocoa
Cocoa may refer to:
Chocolate
* Chocolate
* ''Theobroma cacao'', the cocoa tree
* Cocoa bean, seed of ''Theobroma cacao''
* Chocolate liquor, or cocoa liquor, pure, liquid chocolate extracted from the cocoa bean, including both cocoa butter and ...
, and
chocolate
Chocolate is a food made from roasted and ground cacao seed kernels that is available as a liquid, solid, or paste, either on its own or as a flavoring agent in other foods. Cacao has been consumed in some form since at least the Olmec civ ...
bars produced by
farmer cooperatives in
Latin America
Latin America or
* french: Amérique Latine, link=no
* ht, Amerik Latin, link=no
* pt, América Latina, link=no, name=a, sometimes referred to as LatAm is a large cultural region in the Americas where Romance languages — languages derived f ...
,
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
. Founded in 1986, it is the oldest and largest Fair Trade coffee company in the United States. The highest paid employee of Equal Exchange may not make more than four times what the lowest paid employee receives.
History
Equal Exchange was founded in 1986 by Rink Dickinson, Jonathan Rosenthal, and Michael Rozyne. Before founding Equal Exchange, Dickinson, Rosenthal, and Rozyne were managers at a
food cooperative in New England, and were actively involved in American food industry reform.
For three years prior to Equal Exchange's birth, the three founders met once weekly to discuss how global food trade could be changed to increase incomes and stabilize economic situations of farmers.
The meetings resulted in the development of an alternative trade model that utilized direct trade, established long-term contracts, and offered higher-than-market prices to small coffee farmers. This differs from the traditional trade model, in which buyers go through a series of middlemen to purchase coffee beans from plantation farmers.
Café
Equal Exchange operates three cafés in the United States. The cafés, located in Washington, Illinois, and Ohio, serve Equal Exchange tea, coffee, and espresso drinks as well as locally sourced pastries, sandwiches, and other lunch items.
EEUK
Equal Exchange co-operative based in the UK has close ties to Equal Exchange US where they both share various product lines and farmer co-op producers. Both share the same name and produce coffee, chocolate, and cocoa products among many other items. This relationship was made permanent in 2017 when EE Wholesale UK became a subsidiary of Equal Exchange US.
See also
*
List of bean-to-bar chocolate manufacturers
*
Lorna Young
Lorna Young (15 June 1952 - 5 July 1996) leading contributor to bringing Fair Trade produce from third world countries to mainstream supermarkets in the UK.
Early life
Young was born in Dumfries and studied as a youth and community worker at Mo ...
References
External links
Official website
{{fair trade
Alternative trading organizations
Coffee brands
Fair trade brands
Coffee companies of the United States
Worker cooperatives of the United States
Companies based in Massachusetts
Organic chocolate
Confectionery companies of the United States