About Global Fayre

Like Fair Trade itself, Global Fayre’s story is always developing.

David and Cheri Crump founded Global Fayre as a Fair Trade retailer based in  Springfield, Missouri with the mission of developing the awareness and acceptance of Fair Trade in Southwest Missouri through direct and online sales, and through outreach activities to the local community. Being green was also important to us; we focused on products that made from recycled, reused or sustainable materials and tried to recycle or reuse as much as we could for ourselves.

Global Fayre started with a season at a local farmers market (on Commercial Street in Springfield) before opening a full store in December 2007 (at 324 S Campbell Ave, Springfield, MO). The online store followed soon afterwards. Despite opening right at the start of the recession, and being in an area where awareness of fair trade was very low, we were really happy with the initial performance of the store. We were especially pleased with the number of invitations we received to talk to various groups in the community. For several schools in the area, fair trade talks have now become part of their regular curriculum.

However, after running the store for nearly 4 years, we had to accept that the challenge of running it and raising our family was proving too much for us. We also wanted to spend some time back in the UK with David’s family. So in May 2011 we took the difficult step of closing down the store.

We moved to the UK in August 2011, with David once again working with his brother at Vipa Designs Ltd (you can read more about that here). A core part of David’s role at Vipa is to help them take a leading position in the newly created fair trade gold market in the UK. In January 2012, Vipa was uniquely granted a license by FLO and the Fairtrade Foundation to import, trade and manufacture fair trade gold, and also to make and distribute their own fair trade gold jewellery. The launch of Vipa’s first range of fairtrade jewellery is scheduled for the late Spring of 2012.

Cheri, David and their girls have made their home now in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, UK. Melton Mowbray is a fair trade town, and it has been great to find many fair trade vendors in a relatively small market town.

What’s next for Global Fayre? Now that we are settled, we are keen to make a contribution to our local community as well as the global one. Aside from David’s involvement with Vipa, our fair trade plans include a re-launch of Global Fayre’s online store, planned for late summer 2012.

In the meantime, we’ll continue highlighting fair trade issues here and on our facebook page – so keep in touch, and PLEASE keep supporting Fair Trade!