2014: A Fair Trade Year in Review

It’s officially 2015, a new year that’s sure to be full of good things! In our previous post (Fair Trade: What’s the Big Idea) we talked about the big impact fair trade has on the small communities where our products come from, even though fair trade doesn’t get the same attention as flashy “Big Ideas” claiming to save the world. We truly thank everyone for their efforts to help spread the news about fair trade in 2014! Every act, no matter how small, contributes to the overall impact.

Our goal for 2015: Tell as many fair trade stories as we can.

You might think a business should make selling more products (and making more money) its goal, but I guess we’re not a normal business. Of course we want to sell more products, but in reality, every product we sell has a story attached, so I guess what we really what to do is sell more stories. Every product has a storyline going right back to the artisan who held it in his or her hands and each product story makes up a line in the overall story of fair trade.

Below is a little infographic to sum up the Fair Trade Winds + Momentum year including the number of countries represented in our stores, number of Fair Trade Winds + Momentum family members (employees) and number of products sold.

138,629 products sold = 138,629 stories told

We also wanted to share our top 14 products of 2014. They represent your favorite items in all of our stores for this year. We have thousands of products in our stores, though, and even though they might not have made the top of the list, they are still handcrafted by talented artisans and we love the fair trade story they all represent!

Thank you to everyone who made 2014 a great year for fair trade! We look forward to telling you more fair trade stories, sharing the incredible work of fair trade organizations committed to making real, positive change in the world, and discovering more and more wonderful handcrafted products as the fair trade movement grows!

— Fair Trade Winds + Momentum