Grounds for success

In the beginning, the whole idea sounded crazy.

The founders of the Equal Exchange coffee cooperative told potential investors that they wanted to pay impoverished coffee farmers far more than the market price for their crops in the interest of fair trade -- though the farmers had always worked for whatever they could get.

''We said: 'We have no experience. We're young. Our idea is untested. You will have no voting control. . . . You will not get a tax deduction. We could lose all your money. And if we do make money, you will only get a 5 percent return,' " said Rink Dickinson, one of three founders and the president of the West Bridgewater-based company.

Investors gave them $100,000 anyway.

Today, on the eve of its 20th anniversary, Equal Exchange is a local success story with a global reach.

The concept that began as a long-shot venture with a human rights mission is now, if not exactly a household name, certainly a household presence. Walk down the aisles of Shaw's or Stop & Shop, and Equal Exchange coffee is there. The ripple effect of its success extends to Latin America, Africa, and Asia, where small-scale coffee farmers -- who get more for their product because of Equal Exchange's fair-trade policy -- have been able to upgrade their farms, pay to educate children, and improve their villages.

The worker-owned company's sprawling West Bridgewater office and warehouse complex -- a $3.2 million, 77,000-square-foot-building -- is testimony to its success. Equal Exchange sales grew from $10.4 million in 2002 to $20.7 million in 2005. It now serves about 2,000 restaurants, supermarkets, natural food stores, consumer co-ops, cafes, universities, fair trade retailers, and places of worship. In 2005, those customers bought more than 3 million pounds of Equal Exchange-roasted coffee.

Most importantly, the pioneering company's concept of fair trade for coffee, cocoa, tea, and chocolate has caught on with major competitors. More than 400 coffee companies are offering coffee produced under fair-trade criteria, including Dunkin' Donuts and New England-area McDonald's.

''We've made a lot of progress. But there is a long way to go," Dickinson said recently from his home in Providence as he prepared to travel to Germany as part of Equal Exchange's new effort to tackle inequity in tea sales.

Dickinson, 48, and his founding partners, who no longer are at Equal Exchange, started out in an office on Albany Street in Boston. As the company grew and needed more space, it was drawn south of Boston because of the real estate available in the area. It first moved to Stoughton, then to Canton, and, finally, in need of still-larger facilities, to West Bridgewater in 2004. There it employs 75 worker-owners.

With the larger space, company officials have been able to bring coffee roasting in-house instead of primarily using an off-site location. This winter, MassDevelopment gave officials a $1.4 million financing package that helped with the purchase of $1.7 million worth of state-of-the-art coffee-sorting, roasting, and packaging equipment. The equipment will allow the cooperative to improve coffee quality and increase efficiency.

Fair trade is a concept that is certified through the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International. The organization guarantees that products sold worldwide contribute to the development of disadvantaged producers and workers. It requires that farmers be paid a base price of $1.26 per pound for green, unroasted coffee and $1.41 per pound for organic. Over the past four years, regular market prices have plummeted to as low as 42 cents per pound, said Rodney North, an Equal Exchange worker, board member, and spokesman. Usually, it is about $1 a pound on the regular market.

The fair-trade standards also require that the coffee be derived from a democratically organized cooperative of small-scale farmers, that farmers have access to credit, and that the coffee be directly imported from the cooperatives. The fair-trade system changes the coffee-supply chain from the traditional model by taking other agents and layers out of the process, guaranteeing the farmer more of the money from sales. When farmers get a better price, they say, they can produce a better product and make a long-term investment in quality control.

But the Equal Exchange company strives to do more than that. It wants consumers to think as they drink their coffee, to realize that that critical morning java doesn't just magically appear at a drive-through window.

''One of our missions is to connect consumers and farmers," North said. ''We think people have become too disconnected from where their food comes from. The consumer and the farmer lose out when this connection is broken. . . . We see the effect in the farming community here and in the developing world. This disconnect shows up as extreme economic vulnerability."

The United States is the largest consumer of coffee, but people don't know where it comes from, North said. ''We want to do something about that." So, each year, Equal Exchange organizes trips to coffee farms for customers, investors, wholesalers, journalists, church members, and anyone else who wants to know more. ''Coffee is more interesting when they know the story behind it."

The Rev. Stan Duncan of the United Church of Christ in Abington went on a trip last month to a coffee farm in Chiapas, Mexico, to talk to farmers, see how the product is grown -- and pick coffee beans. ''It's a wonderful way of learning about the dark side of economic globalization," said Duncan, who has long been interested in promoting fair trade. His church sells Equal Exchange coffee to support the effort. And, in 2004, Duncan proposed a resolution to the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ promoting fair trade. It passed.

Duncan recalled an image from his trip that stays with him: One of the women picking coffee beans was in her 80s and hauling pounds of coffee on her back, walking barefoot because she had no shoes. ''It's important to me to connect to the real life of these folks. . . . It puts a face on the pretty pictures. All the coffee companies have pictures of pretty young girls in the sunshine and that is not the way it is," he said. ''It's not just a brand name up there in a field. It's human bodies."

This summer, Equal Exchange workers and company officials will mark the 20th anniversary by gathering stakeholders in workshops and doing what they did from the start -- think. ''We're stopping and assessing what's changed in the past 20 years," North said. ''Against all odds, it's come this far. What next?"

Sandy Coleman can be reached at sbcoleman@globe.com.