We run a social enterprise in India, PepperTrail, for market linkage to farmers' Co-ops and Farmers' Producer Companies in Kerala. Our brand PepperTrail reflects the geographic provenance of most of our products from Kerala - literally, 'the land of coconut palms' - where the ancient black-pepper trade route led. Our packaging shows a glimpse of the rich cultural heritage. We have introduced PepperTrail products to Europe through our UK-registered trading firm, Sanjeevani Naturals, which is also certified for Organic trading standards by Soil Association, UK. We aim to achieve these objectives:
- Make it viable for more farmers to join the organic movement, and get certified.
- Operate according to FairTrade practices, and bring more awareness of such practises to more farmers' co-ops and producer companies - whether certified fair-trade or not.
- We believe, ethos and practices benefiting people/ farmers communities at ground level are more important than just getting certified for the sake of it or just to get acceptability from traders and supermarkets at the other end of the food-chain.
ECO VISION
Reduce environmental impact and increase social welfare by helping local economies to prosper. We want to be the enablers bringing technology and systems for collaborating, sharing information, networking within farmers' community.
By supporting eco-friendly farming, we want to bring natural and organic products from Indian communities- especially farmers' co-operatives of small holders, consortium of small & marginal farmers, women's self-help groups etc. This will help promote an environmentally and economically sustainable development; Development, that is suited not just for short term profits for some, but for long term benefits for all.
OUR ETHOS
Engage in ethical trading practices using Fair-Trade guidelines, with a view to developing long-term relationship
HOW are we going to do this?
Following our ethos, we will provide :
- Market linkages to domestic and international markets, following FAIR-TRADE Guidelines
- Marketing of the produce
- Online and mobile-based support systems to help with logistics, inputs for procurement etc
To make sure that the communities benefit from a partnership with us and in a bid to encourage growers to convert to and continue with organic and environmentally sustainable farming methods, we will enter into fair-trade agreements with individual growers and farmers' co-operatives to bring their products to the domestic/Indian and international/EU markets with the aim to forge lasting and mutually beneficial partnerships.
As a dealer for organic products we will distribute the products from the farmers to supermarkets, health food shops, Farmers' markets and through our website under our PepperTrail brand.