Fairtrade goods, which first appeared on British shelves in the early 1990s, are now part of British business and the everyday lives of consumers through the sale and purchase of brands such as Kit-Kat and Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate and Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The fairtrade label is used to endorse all kinds of branded goods and services and even institutions, ranging from coffee (e.g., Nescafé) and tea (e.g., Typhoo) to clothes (e.g., Patagonia) and even to towns and regions (e.g., Bristol and Yorkshire). From what seemed to be a passing fad, the evolution of the fair-trade label to the “mainstream” seems paradoxical. Its creation is associated with the fair-trade movement that developed in the 1970s to balance the interests of civil society organizations aiming to help producers in the developing world to adopt new business models, and also to protect businesses that engaged with fair-trade practices, against the interests of major brand producers and supermarkets focused on profit maximization, often at the expense of vulnerable suppliers and producers. The aim was to raise consumer awareness of the conditions of workers in Third World countries and help marginalized workers and supplier/producers of raw materials to move from a position of vulnerability in society to one of economic sufficiency. By using the media, and later a fair-trade certification label, fair-trade advocates tried to influence not only national business practices and consumers to make purchase decisions based on trust and charity, but also policy makers to assist in the development of new programs to revive international development.

Matthew Anderson in A History of Fair Trade provides a vivid and interesting account of what has made fair trade a “sticky idea,” characterized by simplicity, unexpectedness, concreteness, credibility, emotions, and stories, with an ability to motivate behavioral change. He argues that the formation of the fair-trade movement was grounded in the work of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and alternative organizations (ATOs), in particular, Christian organizations that during the 1970s demonstrated a united approach to international development, especially in the Third World. In this process, he considers that the role of the social movement was key in successfully beginning to integrate political consumerism within its international development campaigns.

As acknowledged by Anderson, the book is not a traditional business history, although it does include detailed case studies of fair-trade businesses. It mainly explores the history of ideas and engages with a multitude of different, but connected, subjects such as corporate social responsibility, procurement and supply chain management, corporate compliance, ethical branding, and collective consumption. It is well researched, drawing on a series of original sources relating to the recent history of the fair-trade movement, such as the Oxfam archive, Christian Aid archive, Trades Union Congress Archive, archive of the Anti-Apartheid Movement, and papers of multifaith conferences. Anderson uses these archives effectively to analyze the political, religious, and intellectual ideas behind the fair-trade movement in Britain and the role these ideas had in shaping the model of alternative trade, which became one of the most diverse social movements of the twentieth century. The early fair-trade movement of the 1970s, he describes, was characterized by tensions. Many within the NGO community assumed that they would find natural allies in the cooperative movement, trade unions, and consumer organizations. In practice, these relationships proved complex and at times conflicting, as fair trade was often in competition with free trade. For the fair-trade movement to succeed, Anderson argues, it ultimately relied on charismatic leaders, managers, and directors of companies such as Oxfam, Traidcraft, and the Co-operative.

The book is organized thematically, broadly reflecting the chronological development of the fair-trade movement. Chapter 1 traces the origins of Oxfam's involvement in fair trade—first in an informal way, from the late 1950s, and subsequently in a formal capacity, from the early 1970s. Chapter 2 examines the involvement of religious groups such as Christian Aid, CAFOD (Catholic Fund for Overseas Development), and Tearfund in establishing the earliest links between the North and the South, which developed into fair-trade ventures in the postwar period. Chapter 3 looks at the involvement of the cooperative movement with fair trade, highlighting the different pressures faced by management over time that initially made it difficult to recognize fair trade as a viable proposition. Chapter 4 investigates the role of the Trades Union Congress on the international stage, particularly with relation to working conditions in the Third World, highlighting the lack of commitment that existed in advocating on behalf of workers in that part of the world. Chapter 5 looks at how the concept of the “ethical consumer” developed and how it shaped the character of the Fairtrade Foundation. Finally, the conclusion considers the main drivers of change within the fair-trade movement and explores new directions for consumer politics.

For those business historians interested in the early forms of fair trade prior to the 1970s, the book offers a brief account of events, drawing on secondary sources. The sugar boycott and the food riots in the eighteenth century, and the “white list” movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, deserve a mention. But other important events that took place in Britain prior to the 1970s, providing important evidence of “proto–fair trade,” are overlooked; examples include the “free produce” movement, aimed at stopping the production of garments using slave cotton, and Cadbury's and Rowntree's refusal to procure cocoa from São Tomé, which used slave labor. There is also a brief section of the book that places the British case in an international context, within the global fair-trade movement. It would have been useful if Anderson had provided more international comparative analysis, to help the reader make better sense of the pioneer character of the developments taking place in Britain with regard to the fair-trade movement and the creation of a fair-trade certification label.