About Us

"Today hundreds of milions of people lie trapped and enslaved in the prison of poverty… it is time to set them free…
Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that generation. Let your greatness blossom."

Nelson Mandela

Sometimes you can't say it better can you? We at bestfairtrade.com aspire, quite simply, to being a big part of the generation that makes Mandela's plea a reality.

Bestfairtrade.com is an online guide to all aspects of the Fair Trade industry, from producers to end-retailers, and everywhere in between! The main aim of the site is to bring the huge range of fair trade products to market, and to enable the consumer to feel that they can purchase products safe inthe knowledge that the producers have not been exploited in any way.  According to a recent WWF report, Deeper Luxury, the rise in ethical and environmental concerns among consumers is the biggest single cultural shift of the 21st century. Bestfairtrade.com helps guide you to the most ethical products available and makes it as easy as possible to find information about each company. Based on our experience and knowledge of fair trade criteria, we have created our own endorsement (clearly labelled under each entry in our directory), which enriches the range of fairly traded products available on the web and benefits both consumers and producers. This could also include supporting a charity in a developing country where their ethical production is based.

Founded by Leona Mani in 2008 following a long period working in the textile industry in Hong Kong and India, she was inspired to start the site after being closely involved in the activities surrounding the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act.  She also sits on the Sustainability Advisory Panel of Green Rewards and is one of the founders of Ethical Just Got Fabulous. She has created and designed her own range of fair trade products, produced in a co-operative in Calcutta, under the LM label, in collaboration with NVLondonCalcutta.

We are delighted to have support from an amazing team of people who come with their own valuable expertise, advice, and encouragement:

Costanza Beltrame, Product Editor and Social Media.  Costanza has recently graduated with an MA in Corporate and Social Responsibility, and brings fresh ideas to the way that fair trade products can be marketed and promoted.

Our guest blogger, Mitch Teberg, holds an MA in Sustainable Development from the SIT Graduate Institute, USA. He is an Associate Member of the WFTO and has been working in the field of Fair Trade since 2003 starting as a store volunteer for PeaceCraft in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2005 he donned a backpack and left the US to research Fair Trade Organisations in South and SE Asia as the International Liaison for PeaceCraft. During his year long Journey for Fair Trade, he met with Burmese refugees in Thailand, researched NGO development projects in Laos, and met with Fair Trade producer groups in Cambodia.  He currently lives in Ho Chi Minh City.

Amy Clarke is the Founder and Director of The Bubble Consultancy, a micro-consultancy focusing on building better business models through innovation in sustainability.  She has 16 years experience in Sustainable Business and Social Enterprise in consultancy, charity and industry and has held several senior positions including Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, and most recently as the Executive Director for Global Action Plan.  Amy is a trustee of PRIME (The Prince's Initiative for Mature Enterprise), one of HRH The Prince of Wales's charities, and sits on the Advisory Board of The Odysseus Foundation. She has spoken at various conferences at both national and international level including the United Nations Environment Programme conference series, the Economist Sustainability Summit, the National CSR Conference and the Skoll World Forum. She has previously held positions as Chair of the Advisory Board for Heropreneurs and as a non executive director for Green Rewards.

Kim Chappell worked alongside Richard Curtis and Bob Geldof to produce the Live 8 films. She has also headed up the launch and the fundraising of The Circle, set up by Annie Lennox in conjunction with Oxfam. In 2011 she co-produced a concert at the O2 for Peace One Day, the launch of the Global Truce Peace Campaign, and headed the launch of The GREAT Initiative which raised over half a million pounds. Kim has worked with Sam Roddick on an Oxfam campaign highlighting issues in the Congo and is a Trustee of Bottletop. Most recently, she has worked with Annie Lennox on the European launch of Mothers2mothers, an NGO that helps to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

Anne-France Kennedy founded Petit Artisan ten years ago, to offer an alternative to plastic toys and throw away party bags.  They also sell an exclusive range of animal toys and decorative items made of recycled paper called the Animache toys. These toys are handmade in community trade villages in the Philippines. Anne-France now runs Finca UK, a subsidiary of the hugely successful micro-finance company in the USA.