Transform Trade and the Future of Traidcraft
Recently, we hosted a webinar so that we could share the latest updates about our acquisition of the Traidcraft brand, as well as new ethical partnerships, our campaigns and how you can get involved in our work. We were delighted that over 300 amazing supporters attended - thank you!
In case you missed the talk and would like to catch up, you can watch the whole event here on Youtube.
Below is a summary of the main discussion points.
“If you are looking for chocolate raisins, you will not find any here. If you are looking to fight poverty through trade… you’re in the right place.” - Jon McNaughton, Head of Public Engagement and Communications, Transform Trade.
The last year has seen a whirlwind of change, from our transition to our new name Transform Trade in September (formerly Traidcraft Exchange), to the sad closure of Traidcraft Plc in January and our taking ownership of the Traidcraft brand in April.
Despite Traidcraft’s closure, the vital work they embarked upon in 1978, of making trade just, is not complete. Which means Traidcraft isn’t truly gone. Their legacy includes incredible producer groups still running ethical businesses in the most difficult circumstances. Crucially, Traidcraft isn’t gone because their fervent supporters are still fighting for trade justice, and because Transform Trade will always continue to support producers.
We then heard from two inspirational Producers: Sally Sawaya from Meru Herbs and Tahira Nizari from Kazi Yetu. This is a summary of what they had to say:
Meru Herbs, Sally Sawaya:
“At the heart of Meru Herbs is a group of resilient, hardworking women.” – Sally Sawaya
Meru Herbs is a social enterprise producing teas, jams and tomato sauces, whose mission is to improve the quality of life of farmers, the women, and the local community.
To provide a little context, Meru Herbs opened in 1991, purchasing from 30 farmers. Since 1995 they have produced jams and sauces using excess tropical fruit from the peak season, produced to a high quality and able to compete in international markets. 50-11 members are employed drying the herbs and they invest in value addition technology which allows them to export finished products. 90% of their staff are women. The jarring of sauces is done mostly manually, creating employment for the women in the Meru Herbs community. Many women also have leadership positions in the organisation and participate in decision-making.
Women who work for Meru Herbs have now been able to open bank accounts, save and borrow against those savings, provide secure food and housing for their families, and educate their children, both boys and girls equally. Many have also bought small parcels of land in their own name.
Meru Herbs support organic farming where possible, trains farmers in soil conservation and reforestation, and they have recently used a grant from the Producer Fund to refurbish their solar system.
“We believe that an empowered woman is powerful beyond measure, and beautiful beyond description.”
Kazi Yetu, Tahira Nizari:
Kazi Yetu is a social enterprise creating ethically sourced products produced in East Africa. Their goal is creating jobs for both women and farmers by increasing value addition at the farm level and the factory level in Tanzania. Their main factory is in Dar es Salaam.
They source tea, herbs and spices from more than 2000 farmers following organic practices and employ 35 factory workers during peak season doing processing, blending, packaging and branding. 90% of these factory workers are women. Typically, many of these processes are done in the final market, often in Europe, but Kazi Yetu keeps them and the value in the country of origin. After 5 years they sell to 150+ B2B customers.
Every teabag produced is hand-packed by women consistently trained in quality production. They also have a tea packing machine for automated production. Traceability is a high priority - all tea packaging has a QR code so you can trace the entire journey of the product.
Most tea traded as a commodity is CTC tea, but Kazi Yetu focus on orthodox tea (premium, whole leaf tea). CTC tea usually pays farmers $1.70 USD per kilo, but for orthodox leaves Kazi Yetu pays farmers at least $7 USD per kilo. Often that value addition is done by farmers; right now, they are supporting a cooperative in north Tanzania to invest in orthodox processing machinery. In addition to paying these premium prices to farmers Kazi Yetu also support farmers to strengthen their value chains and help them access to markets (including for bulk sales for product Kazi Yetu isn’t large enough to process and sell.)
Running an agribusiness is challenging in Tanzania. For example, they are currently preparing for international food safety certification, which is expensive but could provide new opportunities to them. Waitrose for example requires certification, as do other smaller retailers. They are also focusing on improving working conditions in their factory and have significant growth targets for volumes of teas, herbs and spices purchased from farmers, and for increasing and upskilling factory jobs.
Charlotte Timson, CEO of Transform Trade, then shared her thoughts on the future of Traidcraft:
Traidcraft represented the gold standard and pioneered fairtrade – theirs was a vision of trade based on mutual partnership and respect.
The Traidcraft Foundation gave us custody of the Traidcraft brand. Our vision for the Traidcraft brand is not to set up another online shop, but to support producers directly. We want to use it to help producers find routes to market, find new opportunities to sell their products, to attract social investment for these producers and give them a platform to share their story to reach new audiences and new networks.
How we will use the brand:
Endorsing producers
The Traidcraft brand is trusted and credible by consumers, producers, retailers and social enterprises in the movement. We plan to use the brand to support the producers who embody the values of Traidcraft but might be struggling to develop new sales channels. We also want to support producers who aren’t yet certified but are doing amazing things in their communities – we can help open doors for them.
Licensing products with the brand
Going back to Traidcraft’s roots, another use of the brand will be licensing products. For example, there are many products which do not have official fairtrade standards, but we can ensure principles of Fairtrade are being applied even when traditional certification isn’t available.
Launching Christmas cards
Thirdly we will continue to connect with supporters and churches, reaching people up and down the UK with a Traidcraft Christmas card range to be launched later this year.
Any income raised using the Traidcraft brand will go back into the work of Transform Trade.
Amy Wilson, Head of Partnerships and Investments, Transform Trade, talked about our exciting new ethical partnerships:
The trade justice movement has lots of stakeholders who want to change this system which causes huge inequality in trade. Since January we have reached out to many organisations who have been running to the highest ethical standards for years, and 6 have joined us as Ethical Partners: Ethical Superstore, Ethical Shop, Liberation, Premcrest, Fairtrade Warehouse and Shared Earth.
These partnerships will:
Build solidarity.
Help create market access for producers to sustainable sales channels.
Potentially connect continue to traditional Traidcraft product lines.
Help our campaigns work reach a wider audience and have more impact.
Some will support Transform Trade with check-out donations.
As well as out Ethical Partners we have associates with True Origin/JTS, Oxfam Shop, and BAFTS Fairtrade Network.
This work with our partners will expand, so please do watch this space. We have links to our partners websites at transform-trade.org/partners and there is a directory there of other businesses you can buy from as well.
Finally, Heather Thompson, Supporter Relationship Manager at Transform Trade, talked about the ways you can get involved - and how vital your support is in the fight for trade justice.
We are incredibly grateful to everyone who supports our work, whether that is through donations or awareness raising, and we would like to give a special thank you to those who have chosen to give a gift in their will.
If you are interested in joining in there are so many ways to get involved:
Donate a regular gift
Support our campaigns
Purchase Ethical Raffle tickets (our most recent raffle recently closed!)
Buy Gifts for Life cards
Leave a gift in memory
Join a challenge event
Host a Big Brew or coffee morning event
Donate fair trade stall proceeds
Thanks again to everyone who attended this webinar and for all your support. If you’d like to hear anything further, have any questions, or we can help you out in any way, please do get in touch at hello@transform-trade.org. We’d love to hear from you!