Fair Trade began in the US, when the Mennonite Central Committee started buying and selling needlework from a women’s group in Puerto Rica in 1947. The Church of Brethren began helping WWII refugees by selling clocks from Germany in 1949.

Oxfam UK started to sell handicrafts to help Chinese refugees. In 1958 Ten Thousand Villages opened first fair trade store in US.

The Netherlands formed the first fair trade organization (Fair Trade Organisatie ). Groups from former Dutch colonies began selling sugar cane with a message “By buying cane sugar you give people in poor countries a place in the sun of prosperity." Third World Shops were opened in 1969.

In 1973, Fair Trade Organisatie in the Netherlands, imported the first "fairly traded" coffee from cooperatives of small farmers in Guatemala.

In the US, retailers and traders who began holding yearly conferences in the late 1970s informally formed the North American Alternative Trading Organization (renamed in 1995 as the Fair Trade Federation).

A Dutch priest working with smallholder coffee farmers conceived the idea of a Fair Trade label. Products bought, traded and sold respecting Fair Trade conditions would qualify for a label that would make them stand out among ordinary products on store shelves, and would allow any company to get involved in Fair Trade. In 1988, the "Max Havelaar" label was established in The Netherlands.

The Network of European World Shops (NEWS!) was established in 1994 and represents approximately 3,000 World Shops in 15 European countries. NEWS held the first European World Shops Day, which was later adopted by IFAT as World Fair Trade Day in 2002. In 1997, the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations (FLO) International was created. FLO is responsible for setting international fair trade standards, for certifying production and auditing trade according to these standards and for the labelling of products.

In April 2000, Garstang in Lancashire,UK, declared itself ‘the worlds first Fairtrade Town’. There are now over 300 Fair Trade Towns in UK. Media, PA becomes the first Fair Trade Town in the US in 2006.