They enlist an unbiased third-party auditor to evaluate performance against the Fair Trade standards, finally awarding certification to compliant factories.

That certification process is complex and rigorous, generally taking anywhere between 6-9 months for a producer to achieve Fair Trade Certified status.Then Fair Trade USA does a pre-assessment of the factory through an introductory webinar and in-person meetings with the workforce and management. The organization began to educate corporations on why it was important not only to sell more ethical products under Fair Trade terms but also to educate consumers by using the Fair Trade Seal on products to increase awareness. Rice returned to the US and founded Fair Trade USA in 1997, bringing the certification model to large companies who sold commodity goods like cocoa, bananas and tea. This work served as the foundation for what we now know as Fair Trade Certification. That’s why in the 1990’s, when Fair Trade USA founder Paul Rice was working with coffee farmers in Nicaragua, he wanted to get involved in creating standards that could govern the way that Fair Trade was monitored across the globe. Most of these travelers would purchase some of those products and return to Europe or the US to sell them for a higher price, then bring the profits directly back to the artisans and farmers.īut clearly that process can be open to exploitation, without anyone able to confirm if the profits really went back to workers or more cynically, straight into the pockets of the tourists who brought them back. The Fair Trade movement began as early as the 1950’s when Europeans and Americans traveling to different countries observed that local artisans and farmers were struggling to cover the cost of their businesses. The reason for some of the confusion is that the term Fair Trade can be thrown around as a blanket term for alternate methods of commerce – even those as simple as tourists buying from local artisans and bringing the goods back home to sell. But what exactly is Fair Trade and is it really more than just a marketing ploy to get consumers to feel good about their purchases?

And with 86% of millennials looking for responsibly sourced products, Fair Trade seems like a no brainer. Most consumers have an idea that Fair Trade products are probably a good choice, but maybe they’re not sure exactly why. The words conjure images of coffee, chocolate and happy farmers with fresh produce advertised on a product. Son of a Barista’s coffee is 100% Fair Trade Certified but what does Fair Trade Certified actually mean? We’re exploring that question in this blog so read along!Įveryone’s heard the term Fair Trade.

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