Equal Exchange's mission is 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 co-operatives and Fair Trade to a more equitable, democratic, and sustainable world.
Equal Exchange started with an idea: what if food could be traded in a way that is honest and fair, a way that empowers both farmers and consumers? Equal Exchange's founders - Rink Dickinson, Jonathan Rosenthal, and Michael Rozyne - asked this question as they envisioned a trade model that values each part of the supply chain. So they took a big risk and plunged full force into changing a broken food system. In 1986, they started with fairly traded coffee from Nicaragua and didn't look back.
Three decades later (and with several product lines in the mix), they still face vast challenges. Consumers have been overloaded with labels and certifications, while the Fair Trade movement has been watered down in favor of corporate interests. The whole food industry has continued to consolidate into the hands of just a few big players, allowing concentrated power and deception of choice.
At Equal Exchange they believe that we should expect no less from ourselves and each other than we demand of their farmer partners. For that reason, Equal Exchange has organized itself as a democratic worker cooperative, now one of the largest in the country. A worker cooperative is an alternative for-profit structure based upon standard democratic principles. It is not designed to maximize profits, nor returns to investors, but rather to bring to the workplace many of the rights and responsibilities that they hold as citizens in their communities.
