WHAT IS EQUAL EXCHANGE?

Imagine being part of a food system where you can feed your soul as well as your body. By building honest partnerships based on fair trade standards, efficient business practices and cooperative principles between farmers and consumers, we, the worker-owners of Equal Exchange, are pursuing that dream.

This section explores how you can be part of this new approach to trade, one that brings consumers the cream of the crop and supports farmers and their communities as they build lives based on dignity and hope.

COFFEE & FAIR TRADE

Coffee is big business; it ’s one of the most heavily traded commodities in the world. But for the majority of small coffee farmers, who live in rural communities in some of the poorest countries in the world, the benefits are small. The chain of events that leads from the farm to your cup is long and expensive: processors, creditors, exporters, brokers, and a cast of middlemen known to Latin American farmers as "coyotes" can all come between you and the farmers before you get to sip your morning brew. With world coffee prices constantly changing and coyotes paying the lowest price possible, coffee farmers never know how much they'll get for their crops. Isolated from markets, they struggle to make a simple living. The producers of a rich crop are often trapped in poverty.

But there is an alternative. Using internationally recognized fair trade standards, Equal Exchange seeks to balance the inequities found in the conventional coffee trade. Coffee is a leading source of income for the Developing World. Through fair trade, it can be a delicious and powerful tool to bring about positive change for small farmers and their families.

HOW COFFEE IS GROWN

It's a Long Road from the Coffee Farm to Your Cup

Much like us, coffee begins it life in a nursery. After a year of careful nurturing, the young coffee seedlings are planted, most often in regions with warm days and cool nights, with the best beans being grown at high altitudes. Only after 3 to 7 years of constant care — pruning the plants, terracing, maintaining and improving the soil and regulating shade levels — will the farmer be able to harvest and prepare the coffee for sale.

From picking to roasting, farmers put the coffee through a variety of stages including depulping, fermenting, cleaning, drying and storing. These processes require much skill, dedication and passion on the part of the farmers to ensure the bean is ‘raised’ to the highest quality possible.

Coffee beans come from the fruit of a coffee plant called a cherry. Each cherry contains two beans, which are actually seeds, surrounded by several protective layers and an outer pulp. The coffee harvest begins with farmers hand-picking the ripe cherries. The beans are then removed from the fruit using either the wet or dry processing method.

For most of the coffee in Latin America, this is done using the ‘wet’ process. First the farmer separates the beans from the flesh of the fruit by passing the cherry through a hand operated machine called a depulper.

The beans are then carefully fermented in tanks of fresh water. This 12-36 hour process is critical and significantly affects the overall bean flavor. Once this stage is complete, the beans are washed. Then the beans — covered by only a translucent parchment — are laid out on terraces to dry for three to five days.

Once the beans reach this stage they are called parchment or pergamino beans and are stored in this form until traded. Storing raw coffee with its parchment skin retains its moisture and freshness and keeps the beans in optimal condition. Before exporting, they are milled to remove the parchment, leaving a greenish colored bean, known, not surprisingly, as green beans. It is in this form that coffee is traded.

HOW COFFEE IS TRADED

Yes, coffee is traded as a commodity just like oil, gold or pork bellies. Coffee is big business where many people other than the coffee farmers stand to gain. Commodity traders rely on price fluctuations to make their money, and those fluctuations ensure that farmers never know how much they'll get for their crops.

Traveling the coffee chain can be a long, tiresome and expensive journey: Retailers, roasters, exporters, processors, creditors and a cast of middlemen — often known Latin American farmers as “coyotes” — all come between you and the coffee farmers before you get a sip of your morning brew. Coffee originates from either plantations and estates or small farms. While plantations are traditionally run and owned by wealthy landowners, the small farms are often owned by impoverished farmers. These farmers frequently live in isolated communities having to rely on the coyotes to buy their coffee, invariably for the lowest price possible.

So, the coffee leaves the farmer to begin its journey through the coffee chain, traded from one middleman to the next until it ends up being bought and sold on the commodities market.

Equal Exchange doesn’t accept conventional thinking that coffee is simply a commodity to be purchased at the end of a long chain of intermediaries.

Instead, we buy our coffee directly from the farmers. We trade with democratically organized small farmer cooperatives, paying a fair price with a guaranteed minimum — no matter what the commodity market may tell us.

OUR MISSION

To build long-term trade partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, to foster mutually beneficial relations between farmers and consumers and to demonstrate through our success the viability of worker-owned cooperatives and fair trade.

Since importing our first container of coffee in 1986, we have expanded our work to include 17 trading partners in 10 countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia and are now the largest fair trade certified coffee company in North America.

We purchase 100% of our coffees using internationally recognized fair trade standards that commit Equal Exchange to: Pay a Fair Price

A fair price includes a guaranteed minimum price regardless of how low the commodity market falls. This ensures farmers a living wage even when coffee market prices are too low to maintain acceptable living standards.

Work with Democratically-Run Cooperatives

Equal Exchange's partners are small farmer co-ops that are governed by the farmers themselves. They are dedicated to the equitable distribution of income and the provision of other services, such as healthcare and education.

Buy Direct

Buying directly means that the benefits and profits from trade actually reach the farmers and their communities, not the middlemen with whom they are otherwise forced to work.

Provide Advance Credit

Equal Exchange makes vital credit available to the farmers. Traditionally, this credit was either unavailable or only offered at exorbitant interest rates that kept farmers trapped in debt.

Encourage Ecologically-Sustainable Farming Practices

Sustainable farming helps build a long-term economic base for farmers while protecting their communities, the environment and consumers from dangerous chemicals.

Together, these principles provide a framework that gives farmers more control and ensures that the economic benefits of the coffee trade reach the people who actually grow the beans, helping them to build a better future for themselves.

THE BENEFITS OF FAIR TRADE

What's different about working with Equal Exchange is that we send our coffee directly to them without intermediaries. The extra money our cooperatives receive makes a difference in medicines and nurseries to care for our children.

Mateo Rendon of FESACORA, a co-op federation in El Salvador

Equal Exchange's fair trade practices help build pride, independence and community empowerment for small farmers and their families. A coffee processing plant in El Salvador, community stores in Colombia, the training of doctors and nurses in Mexico, reforestation programs in Costa Rica, new schools in Peru these are all examples of the initiatives that co-ops have taken in their own communities with the income from fair trade.

New Cooperatives in Nicaragua

PRODECOOP (the Promoter of Cooperative Development in the Segovias), an association of 71 farmer co-ops and collectives in northern Nicaragua, sold its very first container of organic coffee to Equal Exchange back in 1991. In the years leading up to this momentous occasion, Equal Exchange played a key role in helping the co-op get off the ground, counseling the group in money management, helping develop credit capacity, and even extending small loans to its members. Our partnership has been strong ever since.

PRODECOOP is an extraordinary example of resilience in a country wracked by civil war. Its members — from both sides of the conflict — are a testimony to the power that small farmers can have when they join together in a cooperative. Their success is also evidence of the value of fair trade in helping farmers as they build a better future for themselves. By paying a fair price, providing preharvest credit, and building a long-term partnership with these farmers, Equal Exchange helped PRODECOOP to provide the support and training necessary for its members to rebuild in the wake of war and confront the economic realities of the 1990s.

Supporting Indigenous Development in Mexico

UCIRI (the Union of Indigenous Communities of the Isthmus Region), located in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, was the first group of farmers to export coffee through the fair trade model. Since the introduction of fair trade practices, the incomes of their over 2,000 member families have doubled. This stability has also enabled UCIRI to establish the region’s first public bus line, build the only secondary school in the area and build a community health clinic.

The members of UCIRI describe their organization symbolically as a tree. The communities are represented by the roots, the elected delegates from each community by the trunk and UCIRI’s economic, cultural, educational and environmental projects by the branches. The fruit produced by these branches signifies the fruits of their combined labor. As an indigenous union made up of about fifty Zapotec, Mixe and Chontale communities, UCIRI is dedicated to the preservation and development of indigenous culture and economic autonomy.

Developing Organic Agriculture and Women's Leadership in Peru

Our principal trading partner in Peru, the Association of Agrarian Coffee Cooperatives (COCLA), serves over 4,500 small-scale farmers located in the Andean mountains near the ancient Incan ruin of Machu Picchu. COCLA was originally formed in 1967 and since that time has become the principal economic institution in the area, warehousing and marketing nearly three-quarters of the coffee and cocoa grown by the surrounding communities.

During the coffee harvest, the farmers share the labor intensive work of picking the coffee by gathering at each member’s farm on a particular day to pick coffee all day long. The next day the group moves on to the farm of the next member down the road.

Fair trade premiums have enabled COCLA to provide a full range of agricultural and social services. For example, agronomists work with each community on organic farming techniques and methods to increase yields. A $140,000 rotating loan fund — generated with the price premiums paid by fair trade organizations — provides village-level cooperatives with pre-planting and pre-harvest financing. A weekly radio program on gender issues, produced by female co-op members and wives of members, is a further example of how the cooperative is putting premiums to good use.

GOOD COFFEE, GOOD BUSINESS

Our concern for the quality of farmers’ lives is matched by our concern for the quality of our coffee.

More and more consumers are now demanding to know where their groceries come from and the working conditions of the people responsible for producing those items. We are proud of our contribution to this shift in consumer perceptions and can say confidently that offering Equal Exchange coffee makes good business sense. Not only is it good business for Third World farmers, but it is good business for hundreds of cafes, co-ops and restaurants around the country.

Our quality control systems start with an inspection of the sample-direct from farmers-to ensure the beans meet the strict requirements of specialty grade. Our buyer then 'cups' the sample to ensure the beans are of the highest quality. Cupping involves roasting, grinding and brewing the beans to allow the buyer to test the aroma, body, acidity and overall flavor of the bean.

Finally, if the bean makes it through the cupping we serve up a pot and see how it copes with the rigors of cream and sugar!

Here are a few testimonials from some of our customers and partners in building Fair Trade:

HEINEN'S FINE FOODS | Cleveland, Ohio
Ed Thompkins, Corporate Buyer

For over 60 years Heinen's Fine Foods has prided itself on offering high quality grocery items to its customers in its 13 stores throughout the Cleveland, Ohio, area.

It was this commitment to quality that led Jeff Heinen and Ed Thompkins, their corporate buyer, to Equal Exchange. “I was brought in as the guinea pig to sample the coffee we had received from Equal Exchange and I was absolutely stunned by the quality. It was second to none.

Although the fair trade message is important to Heinen’s, Ed makes a point of putting quality first:

I hang my hat on quality. You can’t deliver an important message like fair trade with mediocre coffee. We are fortunate with Equal Exchange in that the fair trade message is delivered on the coattails of the quality of the coffee.

For many consumers coffee originates from their neighborhood cafe. According to Ed, Equal Exchange has made coffee more personal and meaningful for his customers because of the direct link with small-scale farmers.

Carrying Equal Exchange coffee is one of the most important things we do.

Ten years ago, as one of Equal Exchange's first customers, Harvest Food Co-op helped to pave the way for Equal Exchange to enter into the natural foods/co-op marketplace while setting an example for other co-ops to carry fairly traded coffee. According to Lydia, the relationship with Equal Exchange is one of the most important they have with any of their suppliers.

Lydia also feels the relationship that consumers establish with Equal Exchange — through buying the coffee and reading the newsletters and brochures — naturally keeps them coming into the store. Lydia says that having Equal Exchange at Harvest “makes shopping much more personal and satisfying for our customers.

Through the Lutheran World Relief Coffee Project, Lutherans across the U.S. enjoy Equal Exchange coffees at fellowship hour and in their homes. In addition to helping to build a better future for small farmers and their families, congregations have found that the project strengthens their own communities. Along with fellowship, gatherings may last longer and include discussion of economic development and social justice issues.

The LWR Coffee Project is a way for Lutherans to help people in need overseas a complimentary addition to the kind of work we’ve been doing for more than fifty years, says Kathryn Wolford, President of LWR.

LWR works in development and relief in fifty countries around the world, strengthening community organizations, improving agricultural production, and offering literacy, health and vocational training to those in need.

We see Equal Exchange as a partner agency, sharing in our mission to help people build better lives for themselves.

ABOUT OUR COFFEES

At Equal Exchange, we take as much pride in the taste of our gourmet coffees as we do in our work with the farmers who grow them.

Varieties and Roasts

We offer our gourmet arabica coffees in a full range of Organic, Conventional, Flavored and Naturally Decaffeinated varieties, including blends and single source coffees, from Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Our delicious coffees are roasted to exacting standards, developing the beans to their richest andmost flavorful. We offer Medium, Full City, Vienna, French and Espresso roasts, as well as blended roasts.

Equal Exchange coffees are available in bulk, packaged and pillow pack form for use in Groceries, Co-ops, Supermarkets, Cafes and Restaurants, Offices and Places of Worship. Please contact us for more information on which options can best suit your needs.

Certified Organic

Our organic coffees are grown by small farmers who manage the soil in a sustainable agricultural system promoting natural cycles and controls, rather than chemical pesticides and fertilizers, to develop the beans to their fullest potential. By paying a premium for their certified organic beans, we are supporting the farmers in their commitment to the environment.

Our organic coffees are certified in accordance with Oregon Tilth standards. This ensures independent verification of the integrity of our products from the farm to our warehouse. It is an expensive and laborious process, but we feel we owe it to the farmers who have made this investment in their farms, and to the consumers who support them.

Shade Grown

Equal Exchange's certified organic coffees are also shade grown, a traditional farming method which benefits the farmer and the local environment. A typical shade grown farm is made up of coffee trees grown alongside other food crops under a canopy of shade trees. These taller trees provide fruit, wood and other valuable products to the farmer while offering protection and nutrients to the coffee plants and preventing erosion to the soil.

Shade grown farms also provide vital wildlife habitat. Each year, billions of migratory birds make the journey from the temperate climates of North America, where they breed, to the tropical climate of the South. Warblers, orioles and thrushes, as well as indigenous birds and animals, make shade grown coffee farms their homes.

By drinking fairly traded coffee, you can help support small-scale farmers, enabling them to farm sustainably, preserving wildlife habitats and protecting the environment for future generations.

FAIR TRADE AND ORGANIC

At Equal Exchange, we take as much pride in the taste of our gourmet coffees as we do in our work with the farmers who grow them.

100% FAIR TRADE

In 1991, Equal Exchange became the first U.S. company to officially adopt Fair Trade Labelling Organization International (FLO) standards as guiding principles. With the establishment of TransFair USA, an independent certifier belonging to FLO, we proudly sell more "Fair Trade Certified"® coffee than any other company in North America. This certification is an independent verification of our standards. As a fair trade organization, Equal Exchange is committed to these principles not just in our products but at the core of our mission and the way we do business.

CERTIFIED ORGANIC

Organic farming recognizes the critical role of the farmer in managing soil, plants, animals and other elements in a sustainable agricultural system which avoids the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers. We believe its healthier for the consumer, for the environment and especially for the farmers and their families. Our organic coffees are independently certified by Oregon Tilth.

Equal Exchange's commitment to organic agriculture is reflected in our extensive range of certified organic coffees, and the assistance we have given to farmers seeking organic certification.