First "fair trade" coffee label

The initiative for certifying “fair trade” coffee began on 15 November 1988, when Solidaridad, a Dutch Catholic aid organization working primarily in Latin America, created the Max Havelaar Foundation (Netherlands) to support small, local farmers in the face of plummeting world coffee prices. The foundation was named after a beloved 1860 novel, Max Havelaar; or, The Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, which had the positive effect of modifying exploitative colonial Dutch practices.

In 1973, Fair Trade Original, also based in the Netherlands, had imported the first fairly traded coffee from Guatemala, but the Max Havelaar Foundation was the first organization to launch a fair trade coffee label.

Within a few years, similar labelling initiatives appeared in various countries. In 1997, they all came together to form the Fair Trade Labeling Organizations International (FLO-International), which sets global standards for fair trade certification. Individual organizations throughout the world continue to promote fair trade using these standards, two of the most notable being the Fair Trade Federation and the European Fair Trade Association.