Press Releases

1/29/03

Albertsons and Equal Exchange Team up to Please Consumers and Small Farmers

GRESHAM, OR — January 29, 2003 — Equal Exchange, the nation's leading fair trade coffee company, announced today that all 140 Albertsons Supermarkets in Washington and Oregon have now begun to stock four of Equal Exchange's most popular packaged fair trade coffees: Organic Breakfast Blend, Organic French Roast, Organic Mind Body and Soul blend, and Organic Decaf. These will be the first Fair Trade Certified products carried by Albertsons, the nation's third largest supermarket retailer.

The four coffees are being added as part of Albertsons' overhaul of their stores' coffee sections. This coffee section reset is designed to create a selection of products that better meet changing consumer preferences. The decision to add fair trade coffees in general, and Equal Exchange coffees in particular, was prompted by the letters sent to Albertsons during their recent 'Dear Albertsons' campaign which invited shoppers to write in with product requests.

Fair Trade certification guarantees consumers that the coffee they purchase comes from democratically organized cooperatives of small farmers that were paid a just price for their crop. This arrangement stands in contrast to the situation of millions of other coffee farming families who have struggled during the last two years as world coffee prices have reached 100 year lows.

Under Fair Trade farmer cooperatives are paid at least $1.26 per pound of coffee, and $1.41 for organic coffee. In contrast the current world market price is 65 cents per pound, and has reached as low as 42 cents in the last year. International relief and development agencies have cited this collapse of coffee prices as the cause of widespread hunger, unemployment and the loss of farms in coffee growing regions worldwide.

Equal Exchange, the pioneer and U.S. market leader in fair trade coffee since 1991, is a full service provider of specialty, organic, fair trade coffee, premium tea and instant hot cocoa to 2,000 supermarkets, natural food stores, restaurants, colleges and 1,500 places of worship across North America. One hundred percent of Equal Exchange's products are fairly traded, and the firm offers the world's widest selection of fairly traded coffee, along with four varieties of organic, fair trade tea, and the first cocoa mix to carry the Fair Trade Certified Label.

More information about Equal Exchange is available at www.equalexchange.com/PR