2004 Annual Report - in English (pdf format)
Informe Anual 2004 - en español (pdf format)
Equal Exchange: What's in a Name?
I think it was early in 1985. Our endeavor was getting pretty serious. Michael, Jonathan, and I had met pretty regularly for a year and a half. We knew our first product would probably be Nicaraguan coffee imported from a friendly Dutch Fair Trade organization. We knew we’d sell to food
co-ops, and Central American solidarity groups. We thought
we could sell to other stores and cafés. We needed a name.
The two nominations were “Equal Exchange” and “Fast Freddy’s Freight Forwarders.” The vote wasn’t really that close. “Fast Freddy’s” had that informal down-home thing going on but other than that it seemed like the alternative was more like us. “Equal Exchange” was active, alliterative, and gave everybody an image of two groups trading, or talking, or marketing in some fair and decent manner. Part of what we liked was the openness and accessibility of the concept of equal exchange.
Who could have imagined that Equal Exchange would become a mid-sized organization, with 55 co-op owners, a million consumers, and 28 producer partners two decades later?
–Rink Dickinson
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