The 40’s
Americans were the first to establish direct commercial exchanges with poor communities from the South with Ten Thousand Villages (previously known as the Mennonite Central Committee Self Help Crafts), and SERRV (today known as SERRV International) .

The 50’s
In Europe, Fair Trade started towards the end of the 50’s when a Oxfam Great Britain Director, during a short visit in Hong Kong, came up with the idea to sell handicrafts produced by Chinese refugees in Oxfam stores. In 1964, Oxfam launched the first Fair Trade organization.

The 60’s
Similar initiatives were also launched in The Netherlands, where Fair Trade Organisatie was set up in 1967 as an import organization. Meanwhile, third world groups in the Netherlands were beginning to sell sugar cane with the slogan “If you buy cane sugar, you…are providing a sunny and prosperous place to poor countries”. These groups continued to extend their actions by selling artefacts produced in the South, and in 1969, the first Fair Trade store opened.

While the various alternative groups were taking these initiatives, developing countries insisted on the need to establish fair exchanges between North and South at the United Nations conference on trade and development in 1964. They claimed “Fair trade, not aid”.