The Institute of Marketecology (IMO ) is set to expand on the fair trade promotion and certification work of Transfair Canada and Transfair USA. The IMO's Fair for Life standard presents a more flexible and complete fair trade certification option because it certifies more products and certifies the product processing as well as the farming of raw ingredients.

“Fair trade is behaving similarly to the early movement in organics, and is predicted to grow similarly, as there is no sign of slowing to this consumer demand,” says Kerry Hughes, M.Sc., US IMO Representative, also Founder of EthnoPharm , a natural products consulting company with over a decade of experience. IMO has a strong presence throughout the world, with offices and representatives in about 30 countries, and certification practices in over 90 countries. With a new representative in the US, IMO certification will be more attainable to US companies.

 IMO is best known in Canada for certifying organic products. For example, some of Cocoa Camino's fair trade organic sugar is certified organic by the IMO. 

Will the IMO catch on in N. America? That probably depends on consumers more than traditional N. American businesses. Will consumers demand food and other products that are fair trade all the way through the production process?

The IMO will eventually post audits of all certified producers.

First see our article on comparisons with FLO (Transfair umbrella organization)

• Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps (U.S.)
• Canaan Fair Trade (Palestine)
• Kaffa Farmers Union & Original Food (Ethiopia)
• Subak Abian Organik Kecamatan Kubu & PMA (Indonesia)

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