The cold winter months were brightened up a bit when the Equal Exchange warehouse in Portland notified us that our first shipment of Salvadoran cashews had arrived. The nuts were so tasty they were practically sold before we could unpack the container. Once in the stores, the response was tremendous. Sales reps were hanging up the phones and reporting unexpectedly large orders. We immediately contacted Aprainores and asked for twice the quantity from the following year’s harvest. We were not going to have a problem selling these tasty snacks. Our challenge was actually the reverse: Aprainores already has two Fair Trade buyers in Europe, the trees are over fifty years old, and the co-op doesn’t have a lot of extra resources to put into farm maintenance: so how can we get more?
Tags: fair trade
-
Phyllis_RobinsonMay 28, 2013 -
Phyllis_RobinsonApril 30, 2013
Not-for-profit organization Fair World Project has criticized changes to Fair Trade USA’s labeling policy, which allows chocolate to carry the seal when it contains a high percentage of other ingredients like sugar that are not fairly traded.
-
Phyllis_RobinsonApril 24, 2013
Fair World Project (FWP), a project of the Organic Consumers Association, the nation’s largest network of green and ethical consumers, opposes Fair Trade USA’s recent changes to its labeling policy, which undermine fair trade farmers, consumers and committed fair trade brands.
-
Equal ExchangeApril 2, 2013
Specialty coffee slingers of Boston are coming together this spring for a second round of Disloyal Boston, a shared disloyalty card program. The card is based on customer loyalty cards used by businesses to reward repeat customers. -
Tom Hanlon-WildeApril 1, 2013This July, exactly 10 years after taking a group of food co-op and natural foods store customers to visit with coffee farmers in the village of Coyona in Peru, our same group will return to to see first-hand the impact of Fair Trade.
-
Cindy MowryMarch 29, 2013We are super excited to have the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) host its annual event in our backyard at the Boston Convention Center April 11-14, 2013. Many of us at Equal Exchange will be attending SCAA-related events throughout the week, and we’ll also be hosting a few events of our own.
-
Jessica Jones-HughesMarch 6, 2013March is Equal Exchange Bananas Month! We are proud to be able to share our successes and challenges with you during March. Here are a few accomplishments.
-
Molly ZeffDecember 11, 2012The Community Sales program, which works with congregations and schools, recently hired a group of part-time "Equal ExChangers" across the Southeast to build a local presence for Equal Exchange. The talented outreach team will be attending events and offering presentations to educate folks about how to bring fairly traded products to their community.
-
Charlie BrandesDecember 11, 2012Meet Ed Bachleda, organizer of Equal Exchange sales at St. Catherine of Sienna church in Portage, Mich. I recently got to meet Ed and see firsthand how he organizes his inventory, and schedules volunteers to sell Equal Exchange fairly traded products after four masses twice each month.
-
Ashley SymonsDecember 6, 2012Here are some holiday gift ideas that are tasty, affordable, and support small farmer co-ops worldwide.