Articles
Choose the Right Products for Your Equal Exchange Sale
Hosting a fair trade sale, holiday fair, or gift market is a great way to introduce your community to ethically-sourced products or make a little money for your cause. Here are some guidelines to take the guesswork out of ordering.
How to Store Coffee
A lot of effort goes into growing, shipping, roasting and packaging coffee to ensure a great-tasting cup. However, the benefits of those efforts can be lost at the very end of the line: in your own home. The way you store coffee has a profound impact on its taste and shelf life, so here we will explore the best ways to keep your beans fresh and delicious — plus a few pitfalls to avoid.
Have a Contact-Free Fair Trade Sale
Offering fairly traded and organic coffee, tea, chocolate and cocoa to your community provides an opportunity to buy meaningful, high quality gifts and can even add some additional income for your own group’s special projects and programs.
Susan Domey-Allen: Coordinator Extraordinaire at UCC Norwell
UCC Norwell is a great example of a church that lives out its values by promoting fair trade products. We’re highlighting social justice activist and top Equal Exchange supporter Susan Domey-Allen of UCC Norwell in Massachusetts. Susan recently shared their fair trade story and a variety of ways to reach out to others to ensure sure that purchases of chocolate don’t contribute to slave labor, human trafficking, and injustice for cacao producers.
A Conversation with Edith Stacey-Huber
Edith Stacey-Huber is passionate about food. She is the creator of the food buying club Authentic Provisions just outside of Ann Arbor, Mich. Authentic Provisions aims to reconnect people in the community to the food, land, and farmers who sustain them, through collective purchasing outside of the corporate food system.
Extraordinary Coordinators at Trinity Lutheran Church
Carolyn Boone’s church brews fairly traded coffee at gatherings and sells a variety of Equal Exchange products once a month after services. Every year, they rank among Equal Exchange’s top customers! What’s their secret? We thought we’d give Carolyn the change to tell you, in her own words!
Vacuum Sealed vs. Nitrogen Flushed Coffee
When you’re shopping for coffee, you will find that it comes in all kinds of different packages, including cans, vacuum packs and bags with valves. Each of these packages has its benefits and drawbacks, but the main goal is always to preserve the freshness of the coffee.
Organic vs. Conventional Coffee
Even if you already choose organic in the produce aisle, you might wonder why it matters for your brew.
The Search for Sustainable Packaging
We’ve been selling organic, fairly traded coffee since 1986 and our coffee bags are without a doubt one of our most recognizable products. When you’re in the grocery aisle, those bright red mylar bags are hard to miss.
PARC’s Ongoing Commitment to Small-Scale Farmers and COVID-19 Efforts
Equal Exchange is proud to partner with the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC). For 37 years, the organization has been committed to Palestinian farmers, cooperatives, and community groups in the West Bank and Gaza.
Extraordinary Coordinators at UU Fellowship of Vero Beach
This is the story of the Fair Trade Corner at Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach as related by Pam Pelliccia. It’s the history of the UUSC Fair Trade Project at the Fellowship and highlights Gale Parmentier, who is retiring, and played a key role in the growth and success of their program.
Carol Bjelland: Coordinator Extraordinaire at Ascension Lutheran Church
Carol Bjelland, a member of the fair trade committee at Ascension Lutheran Church in Thousand Oaks, CA is a shining example of an organizer who has taken the church community’s commitment to choosing ethically sourced products to another level.
Extraordinary Coordinators at Bethesda Lutheran
At our church, Fair Trade represents justice and equality. Every time we make a purchase, we can choose whether the implications of this purchase are equal or just. When I look in a cup of Fair Trade coffee, I see a farmer overcoming poverty, her daughter attending school, her son visiting a medical clinic, and her community benefiting.
About Our Solidarity Box
We've put together a collection of some of our best-selling products from small-farmer cooperatives around the world. Whether you buy a box for yourself or give one as a gift you are taking a stand in solidarity with small farmers worldwide.
How to Brew Fellowship Blend
Use this course-ground coffee in a percolator, french press, or to make cold brew concentrate for iced coffee.
Power to the (Women) Farmers
In the fair trade world, farmers form the backbone of the supply chain and are essential partners for the businesses with whom they work. However, in discussions about farming, well-intentioned speakers on the receiving end of the supply chain tend to fit farmers into boxes, conjuring an image of “The Farmer” as a middle-aged (and in the U.S., white) male.
How a Bruised Banana Can Save the World
Over the past year, we have had to adjust our lives to unexpected changes, and adapt to new ways of socializing, shopping, and eating. In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us may have experienced shortages at local grocery stores, while others may have embraced meal kits and delivery services.
Building the People’s Food System: Next Steps
We’re excited to announce the start of a new initiative to support fellow independent food businesses in New England and around the country. For those who have followed us over the past several years, you know that the threat to small companies posed by massive consolidation in the food industry is something we have written and spoken about at length.