WHY EQUAL EXCHANGE?

It’s better for It’s better for your It’s better for our planet family & friends farmers

KEEPING IT GREEN: DELICIOUS COFFEE, TEA, A FAIR DEAL: HEALTHY FORESTS AND CHOCOLATE & FOODS THAT BUILDING STRONGER HEALTHY COMMUNITIES. MAKE A DIFFERENCE. LOCAL COMMUNITIES.

Most Equal Exchange products are Through Equal Exchange you can: Through fair trade, small-scale farmers organic. This means that coffee farmers are better able to: are using their deep knowledge to • Transform your coffee hour, holiday restore and preserve our planet. fair or fundraiser into a delicious, • Support their families and stay on Farmers are: inviting expression of your values. their land with better income and support from their co-operatives. • Protecting and improving forest • Increase your impact: Have direct, cover and habitat for migratory birds positive impact on farming families • Build their own businesses. As and other wildlife through shade and forest areas all over the world. members of democratically run farming. co-operatives, farmers gain control • Make really delicious fairly traded of their own livelihoods and make • Preserving local river water quality. coffee, tea, chocolate and foods strides together in agriculture and available to your community at quality control. • Improving the soil and preventing wholesale case prices. erosion. • Improve their communities. With Your family and friends will appreciate fair trade premiums, farming • Growing organic products without you for it! communities make investments in the use of toxic and persistent education, health programs, and pesticides. social services.

equalexchange.coop WHY EQUAL EXCHANGE? EQUAL EXCHANGE’S MISSION is to build long-term trade Equal Exchange founded the U.S. fair trade partnerships that are economically just and environmentally sound, coffee movement in 1986 and continues to to foster mutually beneficial be a 100% fair trade food company. relationships between farmers and consumers and to demonstrate, through our success, the contribution of worker co- Equal Exchange is a worker-owned operatives and fair trade to a co-operative, an alternative business more equitable, democratic and model based on democratic principles. sustainable world. IN OUR CO-OPERATIVE: EQUAL EXCHANGE’S GUIDING • Each worker-owner gets one vote. PRINCIPLES ARE TO: • We use open-book management, so all employees • Trade directly with have access to information. democratically organized small- • We distribute resources (such as income) equitably. scale farmer co-operatives • Facilitate access to credit for In contrast to the general trend of rising income producer organizations inequality, the gap between the highest paid and • Pay producers a guaranteed lowest paid employee at Equal Exchange is shrinking. minimum price that provides a stable source of income as well as improved social services 5 Equal Exchange’s top-to-bottom • Provide consumers with high pay ratio is 5-to-1 quality food products 1 • Support sustainable farming practices • Build a democratically run 361 In 2018, the ratio of CEO pay to cooperative workplace average worker pay was 361-to-1* • Develop more environmentally 1 sound business practices * Source: Forbes

equalexchange.coop