| Our Co-op
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Fast Facts |
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Products
Equal Exchange is the leading Fair Trade brand of food and beverages
in the United States.
Coffee
We offer one of the world's largest selection of fairly traded coffee:
80 choices, including 36 single-origin coffees, 59 certified organic
selections, and 5 different package sizes from 1.5 oz to 5 lbs.
Tea, chocolate & other products
- Organic fairly traded teas: 5 bagged teas & 5 pyramid large leaf teas from India, Sri Lanka and South Africa
- Organic fairly traded hot cocoa mix (#1 hot cocoa SKU in the Natural Foods Category according to SPINS) & spicy hot cocoa mix
- Organic fairly traded drinking chocolate
- Organic fairly traded baking cocoa powder
- 8 Organic fairly traded 3.5 oz chocolate bars + chocolate "minis"
- Organic fairly traded sugar packets, the first on the U.S. market
- Organic fairly traded tamari-roasted almonds
- Organic fairly traded dried cranberries
- Organic fairly traded bananas
Commitment to Farmers and Fair Trade
- First U.S. food or beverage company to adopt the international Fair Trade standards (1991)
- Credit―In 1995 Equal Exchange became one of the first US coffee importers to actively provide pre-harvest credit to the small farmer cooperatives. In 2009 we helped provide approximately $3,000,000 in affordable credit to our coffee farmer partners.
- Fair Trade Premiums* paid over the conventional coffee market from 2000 through 2008: $9,500,000+
*What's the "Fair Trade Premium?" When the world market price of coffee drops below the guaranteed Fair Trade floor price of $1.31/lb, we call the difference between those low prices and our guaranteed prices the "Fair Trade Premium". At one time in 2002 the world price for coffee dropped as low as 42¢/lb. During this period the extra income we’ve provided to our small farmer partners has often made a critical difference for them, for the cooperatives, and their communities. For the sake of coffee farmers the world over we hope the world market price for coffee will rise, not only to $1.31, but higher still. If they do the Fair Trade premiums we pay will shrink, but never disappear as we will always pay at least 5¢ per pound over the market price.
- Fairly traded coffee imported in 2009: approximately 6,000,000 pounds
- Number of small coffee farmer co-op partners: 26 co-ops in 12 countries
(Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Tanzania, Uganda, Ethiopia, Indonesia)
- Other farmer relationships―Equal Exchange purchases fairly traded tea, cocoa and other foods from 15 small farmer co-ops in 9 countries:
Dominican Republic (cocoa)
India (tea)
Panama (cocoa)
Sri Lanka (tea)
Peru (cocoa)
South Africa (rooibos)
Ecuador (bananas)
Paraguay (sugar)
Costa Rica (sugar)
U.S./ California (almonds)
U.S./ Massachusetts (cranberries)
U.S./ Wisconsin (cranberries)
Commitment To Organics
- 90+% of the 6 million pounds of coffee we import annually is certified organic, making Equal Exchange one of the nation’s largest purveyors of organic coffee.
- 100% of our tea, cocoa, chocolate, sugar, bananas, cranberries and almonds are certified organic.
- In 2007 Equal Exchange worked with others to successfully overturn a USDA ruling and protect U.S. market access for hundreds of thousands of small-scale organic farmers around the world.
Company Statistics & Financial Data
Average annual growth, 1986-2009: 30.3%
2009 Sales: $35,700,000
Full-time employees: 110
Members* of our worker cooperative: 94
(*Employees must work one year before becoming eligible to join)
Equal Exchange is one of the largest worker cooperatives in the United States, and, we believe, the world’s largest worker-owned coffee roasting facility.
Offices
- West Bridgewater, Massachusetts (HQ)
- Boston, Massachusetts (café)
- St. Paul, Minnesota
- Portland, Oregon
- Seattle, Washington (café)
Awards
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Our Co-op 
