Alternative Business Models Building Fair and Equitable Partnerships

Alternative Business Models Building Fair and Equitable Partnerships

In part 2 of a series on Alternative Business Structures, Dana Geffner examines a few examples of alternative business models that are building fair and equitable partnerships with organizing efforts around the world. By understanding governance structures that officially center people, supporting these efforts and replicating them, we can visualize a path to creating a food system that works for us all.  

Read More
Cooperative Partnerships Rule Over the Market

Cooperative Partnerships Rule Over the Market

Dary Goodrich, our Chocolate Products Manager, was recently in Peru, where the cacao harvest is just beginning. With the current global shortage of cocoa and the unprecedented surge in cocoa prices, farmers shared that they were aware of the higher-than-normal prices at the end of last year and invested more in their farms to make sure they would have a great harvest. Dary reflects more on what is happening and what this means for our farmer partners and chocolate lovers like you.

Read More
Unprecedented Chocolate Prices Reveal a Vulnerable Supply Chain

Unprecedented Chocolate Prices Reveal a Vulnerable Supply Chain

While cocoa and chocolate are beloved products for many of us, they have been receiving attention lately related to a global shortage, and the causes and consequences linked to this shortage, including a spike in prices on grocery shelves. We at Equal Exchange want to share some inside perspectives about what’s happening in the cacao world, including how climate change, commodity markets, and alternative fair trade supply chains interrelate. It’s also an opportune time to focus some deserved attention on cacao farmers.

Read More
The Story Behind Our Alternative Trade Partnership with Gebana Burkina Faso

The Story Behind Our Alternative Trade Partnership with Gebana Burkina Faso

Since our founding, Equal Exchange has sought to partner with visionary, democratic, and sustainably-minded producer groups, distributors, food cooperatives, and natural grocery stores. This approach is no longer enough. We now have to respond to this growing corporate threat by taking our model one step further: partnering with other Alternative Trade Organizations and building bridges amongst ourselves, as if we were islands floating in a large ocean that is today’s food system. We believe this is the only way to survive, continue to thrive, and achieve our mutual goal of a food system that works for everyone, not just corporations.

Read More
Colombia Series: Snapshot of an Organic Farm

Colombia Series: Snapshot of an Organic Farm

Our staff recently traveled to Colombia to visit our farmer partners there. It's a common experience: when we go to source and someone asks how the trip was, it is hard to answer. The truth is, the experience is complex. So complex that we are going to take our time to share different reflections, angles, and photos over time, to give a more complex answer. To kick off this series, Lynsey Miller reflects on her visit to a lush and abundant organic coffee farm.

Read More
Who Grows the Cacao in Your Chocolate?

Who Grows the Cacao in Your Chocolate?

Starting around 2000, labor abuses in the cocoa industry began to get international attention. You may have heard about poverty wages, unsafe working conditions, the worst forms of child labor and even modern-day slavery. You may have heard that farming practices that damage the environment were common, too. But what’s going on with that now? Have things gotten any better? (Article updated February 2024)

Read More
Citizen-Consumer Reflection: Strength in the Commitment of Many

Citizen-Consumer Reflection: Strength in the Commitment of Many

Thirty-seven years ago, I did not identify primarily as a consumer, and the label still doesn’t quite fit, but I did identify as a citizen open to learning how Nicaraguans were creating more equal social relationships. When volunteering with newly formed sewing cooperatives, I met small farmers who shared stories of how they never were paid a fair price by the buyers of the fruits of their hard labor. I became a small bridge of sales of Nica coffee beans through Equal Exchange.

Read More
Journey to ACOPAGRO and Connecting Communities with the Origin Bean Program

Journey to ACOPAGRO and Connecting Communities with the Origin Bean Program

In 2019, Equal Exchange worked alongside ACOPAGRO cacao co-op of Peru to foster a delegation opportunity like no other. A blend of Equal Exchange worker-owners and customers traveled three hours from the nearest city by boat to learn about cacao farming in the Amazon basin and stayed with gracious hosts who opened their homes and lives to share in this experience.

Read More
Equal Exchange’s Radical Model: Building Democratic Trade Networks in Contrast to Conventional Supply Chains

Equal Exchange’s Radical Model: Building Democratic Trade Networks in Contrast to Conventional Supply Chains

In the early years it was very clear that Equal Exchange was radically different and breaking many of the “rules” of the market. During this time fair trade or alternative trade was barely known so by definition, it was different because there were no alternatives.

Read More
Relationships in the Time of COVID

Relationships in the Time of COVID

Despite the extra layer of stresses and worries the pandemic is causing, we at Equal Exchange are also feeling a depth of gratitude and affection for the myriad relationships that we have cultivated over these past four decades. Creating, maintaining, and deepening relationships are the pillars that our organization and our business model are built upon.

Read More