Company Profile
Equal Exchange Trading Ltd.
Suite 1, 2 Commercial Street
Edinburgh, EH6 6JA, Scotland
T: +44 (131) 554 5912
http://www.equalexchange.co.uk
About Equal Exchange
Fine food company Equal Exchange has been at the forefront of the alternative trade movement for nearly thirty years. Passionate about great food and drink, the company is dedicated to the promotion of Fairtrade and organic production, ensuring a fair deal for farmers, and for the environment.
The company is a member of the International Fair Trade Association (IFAT) and as such has Fair Trade at the heart of its mission and all its activities. True to its ethics of fair business, Equal Exchange is a workers’ co-operative - a company that is owned and controlled by its employees.
Equal Exchange Trading Ltd. was the first company in the United Kindgom to sign a license agreement with Ethiopia to distribute it's trademarked coffees.
Equal Exchange products
Equal Exchange’s award-winning range of 100% natural, Fairtrade and organic certified products includes single origin coffees, irresistibly healthy nuts and nut spreads, sumptuous brazil nut oil, antioxidant-rich Rooibos tea, unpasteurised blossom and woodland honeys, sun-ripened sugar, single garden teas and Hispaniola cocoa. Products are available through health food wholesalers, from Planet Organic, Fresh & Wild, Wholefoods Market, Waitrose and independent health food stores across the UK and Ireland.
Nearly all of Equal Exchange’s products are Fairtrade and organic certified, where standards exist and certification is logistically possible. In several cases the company has pioneered supply chains so that certification standards can be established, and as a result many of its products have been world firsts in organic and Fairtrade status.
Equal Exchange producers
Equal Exchange works with producers in seventeen countries including India, South Africa, Bolivia and El Salvador, to market and distribute a range of Fairtrade and organic food. The company champions the rights of small-scale farmers and producers in some of the world’s poorest communities and supports them to create and build their businesses, take care of their families and improve their lives through trade.
Equal Exchange works to keep greater product value within producers’ communities, and is proud to be one of the few companies that offer teas, rooibos and oils that have been picked and packed in the country of origin, bringing extra vital income to poor communities that most need it.
After 30 years working with farmers in poor communities around the world to help them get a better deal, we’re only too aware of how significant these trademarks are. It’s a big breakthrough for a developing country to use international trade rules, which in so many cases work against poor producers, to benefit small-scale farmers.
The trademark agreements allow the Ethiopian coffee industry to take control of its very valuable products through the intellectual property system. It sets an important precedent in new ways of looking at trade.
- Andy Good, Managing Director of Equal Exchange