X-Nico

2 unusual facts about Max Havelaar


International Fairtrade Certification Mark

The label, launched by Nico Roozen and Dutch missionary Frans van der Hoff, was then called Max Havelaar after a fictional Dutch character who opposed the exploitation of coffee pickers in Dutch colonies.

Sitor Situmorang

When he was 15, he was inspired to translate Saijah and Adinda (a poem), a part of Max Havelaar by Multatuli, from Dutch to Batak which was his mother tongue even though his Dutch was limited for this kind of literature.


Frans van der Hoff

Frans van der Hoff (born 1939), or Francisco VanderHoff Boersma as he is called in Latin America, is a Dutch missionary who, in collaboration with Nico Roozen and ecumenical development agency Solidaridad, launched Max Havelaar, the first Fairtrade label in 1988.


see also

History of fair trade

A solution was found in 1988, when the first Fairtrade label, Max Havelaar, was launched under the initiative of Nico Roozen, Frans van der Hoff and Dutch ecumenical development agency Solidaridad.