Equal Exchange is a worker-owned co-op that partners with farmers and farmer co-ops around the world to bring their products to market at fair trade prices. Rink Dickinson, Jonathan Rosenthal, and Michael Rozyn founded the co-op to empower both farmers and consumers.
Equal Exchange helped pioneer the fair trade model with coffee farmers in the late 1980s. The co-op sourced organic coffee beans, paying a fair wage, and roasted them for sale under the Equal Exchange brand. They expanded into fair trade chocolate and tea. Today they’re still working with food co-ops around the nation to expand an alternative food system that brings a variety of high quality, organic coffee, tea, cocoa, and chocolate to our markets from small farmer co-ops around the world. They have also expanded to work with fruit and nut farmers, including co-ops that produce cashews, bananas, and avocados.
The mission of Equal Exchange is unorthodox for a business, but will resonate with Weaver Street Market shoppers: “To build long-term trade partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relationships between farmers and consumers, and to demonstrate, through our success, the contribution of worker cooperatives and fair trade to a more equitable, democratic, and sustainable world.”
Meet the farmers:
Coffee: http://equalexchange.coop/products/coffee
Tea: http://equalexchange.coop/products/tea
Chocolate and cocoa: http://equalexchange.coop/products/chocolate
Bananas: http://equalexchange.coop/products/bananas
Cashews: http://equalexchange.coop/cashews
Avocados: http://equalexchange.coop/avocados