Friday 29th May 2015
Suppliers
Visit to our FairWild and organic suppliers in eastern Europe
Our Founding Director Mike Brook and Standards Co-ordinator Matt Richards have just returned from visiting some of our FairWild and organic-certified suppliers in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Hungary.
We work very closely with our FairWild suppliers to secure high-quality, fairly traded and sustainable herbs, destined for a wide range of products from the UK’s pioneering FairWild-certified organic brands.
Matt said: “The FairWild standard ensures that the collection of wild plants is managed sustainably, and that a social premium is democratically allocated to benefit the collectors and their communities. A large part of our visit was to meet some of the collectors and work with our suppliers to understand how the certification works in practice. It is always very rewarding meeting the people who benefit from our supply chain and the tangible benefits that FW delivers to those on the land. For example Szilard (picture above) is a collection organiser who had recently agreed with his collectors to spend the FW premium on a polytunnel for drying their harvest. This is important as it allows the collectors to achieve a better price for the dry plants and ensures the quality is retained by drying quickly after harvest. It was great to see such good quality herbs coming from organically certified wild land. The Elderflower harvest has been slightly delayed due to lots of rainfall in this region but this won’t hopefully affect the overall harvest. The collectors know when is the best time to harvest, to ensure the best quality product.
It was also a chance to strengthen our relationships with our suppliers, to inspire trust and security in our supply – something at the heart of how we operate. We will continue to work closely with our FW suppliers to ensure maximum benefit to the collectors and see how the harvest goes for all our species.”
Our early summer visits to our FairWild-certified suppliers continue next week when Matt will be visiting our suppliers in Poland.