There are many different types of fair trade gifts, including clothing and accessories, fruit, and sweets. In fact, almost any item can be acquired fair trade if one looks hard enough. Sometimes, fair trade gifts are not available in brick and mortar stores, but can be found in an Internet shop. Whatever the occasion, there is probably a suitable fair trade gift to give.
For coffee lovers, suitable fair trade gifts might be a bag of fair trade coffee or a gift certificate to a coffee shop that sells fair trade coffee beverages. This is one of the easiest fair trade products to come by, because some of the most popular coffee shops now serve fair trade coffee. For example, Starbucks® purchased more than 80% of its coffee from ethical sources, and aims to exclusively purchase fair trade by 2015.
Clothing is another type of fair trade product that can make a great gift. It can be difficult to find fair trade clothing in brick and mortar stores in some regions of the world, but there are plenty of options available online. Fair trade clothing benefits economically disadvantaged producers by giving them a reasonable price for their goods. The quality of the clothing is usually on par or, in many cases, exceeds that of mass produced clothing.
Fair trade jewelry benefits both the producers that craft the jewelry and the people who mine the pieces' stones and metal. Like fair trade clothing, fair trade jewelry is not widely found in brick and mortar stores because mass produced items are less expensive and available in higher quantities. It is not necessary to buy a specific piece of jewelry to gift, though; a lot of fair trade organizations offer gift certificates to be given to friends.
Another kind of fair trade good is chocolate, which can be acquired in bars or powder form to make hot chocolate or baked goods. Fair trade chocolate comes from producers that grow their own beans. It is widely available in Internet shops and organic grocery stores.
Fair trade gifts can also be in the form of gift baskets, like fruit baskets. Grocery stores, organic ones in particular, sometimes carry fair trade fruit such as bananas. Normally, these items are marked as such with a sign or sticker placed directly on the fruit. Fair trade fruit might be especially rare in some jurisdictions, because the fruit trade is mostly owned by large corporations rather than the average farmer.
