Description
Weltläden are Germany’s fair trade shops, about 900 local shops mostly run by volunteers, which sell coffee, chocolate, crafts, clothing and gifts from suppliers checked against fair trade criteria.
About 470 of them belong to the Weltladen-Dachverband, a registered association founded by the shops in 1975 and based in Mainz. For more than 25 years it has checked the importers the shops buy from against the “Konvention der Weltläden”, its own fair trade criteria, and lists the roughly 90 approved suppliers in a catalogue. Member shops choose their range from that list. The Dachverband is a member of the World Fair Trade Organization and a founding member of Forum Fairer Handel.
The shops are run by local groups, with tens of thousands of people working in them, most of them unpaid. Their sales reached about €79 million in 2024, according to the Dachverband, and rose by 10 % in 2025, according to Forum Fairer Handel. The Dachverband’s website has a map to find the nearest shop.
Strengths
- Suppliers are checked by the shops’ own umbrella organisation, as companies, and not only through a product label.
- With around 900 shops, there is one in most German towns, not only in big cities.
- Shops are run by local non-profit groups, which also organise talks and campaigns such as the yearly Weltladentag.
Weaknesses
- Opening hours and range depend on each shop and its volunteers.
- Rising rents weigh on small shops: one in Ebingen saw sales fall from €46,000 in 2020 to €38,000 in 2025.
- There is no shared online shop, so buying online means going through the suppliers’ own shops.
Who it is for
People in Germany who want to buy gifts, coffee or chocolate in person, from a shop where they can ask where the products come from.