Author Archives: Kirsteen

La Siembra

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Established in 1999 with the vision to connect southern cocoa and sugar producers with Canadian consumers in a sustainable manner, La Siembra has built a national brand out of their offices in Ottawa of Fair Trade and Organic cocoa, sugar and chocolate products known widely as Cocoa Camino.

They currently have 21 retail products available in over 2000 retail outlets across Canada together with bulk and industrial products sold to cafes, restaurants and industrial manufacturers. Since 2001 they have also sold these products to private label customers in Canada, the United States and internationally.

Shared Interest has worked with La Siembra since 2003. In that period we have seen the facility grow substantially. During this time La Siembra remained grateful to Shared Interest for supporting them financially and they feel that without us they would not be where they are today.

La Siembra’s recent achievements include establishing a direct purchasing relationship for cocoa powder with CONACADO and new producer relationships with El Ceibo, Naranjillo and CEPICAFE. They have also launched a revamped website to better engage their customers and held a national online competition to celebrate and promote World Fair Trade days in collaboration with Mountain Equipment Co-operative and Ten Thousand Villages.

Finally for the second year running they won the WorldBlu ‘Most Democratic Workplace’ award. The award is a groundbreaking global award that shines a spotlight on visionary organisations successfully practicing organisational democracy. The purpose of the award is to honour these champions of freedom in the workplace. The WorldBlu List is comprised of organisations in the for-profit, non-profit, and government sectors that took the WorldBlu Democratic Workplace Scorecard and scored in the top level. The WorldBlu List is a list (instead of a ranking) and is announced annually each April as a part of Democracy in the Workplace Day.

If you wish to discover more about La Siembra please visit their website www.cocoacamino.com

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Fundación Solidaridad

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The recent earthquakes in Chile have naturally caused concern over the welfare of our customers.

Shared Interest has worked with the Chilean handicraft organisation, Fundación Solidaridad since 2001. The company began work as part of COPACHI in 1974, supporting the production and sale of handicrafts made by political prisoners detained in prisons and detention camps under Pinochet.

Since then they have gone on to work with hundreds of Santiago’s poorest community groups, helping those who want to earn a living to alleviate their economic difficulties.

Executive Director, Winnie Lira, has been in touch to share how the earthquake has affected Fundación Solidaridad and the work that they have been doing to support their producers during this time. Winnie said:

“As of today, except in one location where all communications are completely cut off, we have been able to communicate with all producers and have been happily been informed that the only losses sustained by our producer groups have been material ones: fallen walls, lack of water or electricity, shattering of all the windows in their house, and substantial losses of their raw materials.  We’re supporting them as much as we can with these matters and everyone continues working

As for us, our lovely old house on Calle Santo Domingo has sustained no structural damage, but all kinds of cracks in the walls have appeared, cornices have fallen off, and parts of the roof have been damaged.  It is not as beautiful as it once was, but we are very grateful to be able to continue working in it.  We only hope that there are no more aftershocks because with each one there is another crack that expands.

Witnessing so much pain and destruction made all our team at Fundación Solidaridad and producers feel helpless and anxious to do something else.  Last week, visiting families who are living in tents in the Plaza Yungay, 500 meters of the Foundation, the children gave us the idea of something we could do. Their little faces of full of grief and bewilderment alongside their parents who can now think only of where they will live and everything they’ve lost, made us realise: children must be able to continue playing.

Today we made the first dispatch of 100 toys for children in Jardín “El Pescador” Coronel, the area hardest hit in the earthquake which is also where “aunties” play with the children because their local park was destroyed.

What makes us happy is that all producers of toys in Santiago we work with the Foundation have come up with dolls, puppets, trucks, clowns, puzzles from the stock they had available. All can share in the joy and be grateful that such toys, which are their means of income for household expenses, have now, in the words of an enterprising woman: “have now given me the greatest satisfaction of my life”.  Foundation Solidaridad will also donate part of their stock of toys and pay the packing and transport.

We wanted to share this experience with you as the best way to thank you for your concern and solidarity.”

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Customer Focus DWP

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Shared Interest has worked with German Buyer organisation DWP since 2000. DWP were founded in 1988, and started life in a basement. Since then they have gone on to occupy the rest of their building and perhaps more importantly, to establish cooperative trade relations with more than 50 producer groups in 30 countries.

DWP currently markets around 1,200 products. These include Kenyan carvings, textiles made of organic cotton, coffee and fine chocolate. Their main focus however is mango, every year, 600 tonnes of fresh fruit are processed and imported in the form of dried fruit and puree.

More recently, DWP have been working closely with promoters of organic agriculture, Naturland, with the aim of producing a quality range of organic and fair trade products. Currently this range includes coffee, tea, spices, chocolate, and honey as well as ingredients for their exclusive Asian cuisine.

In addition to commodities, DWP also see the importance of providing a market for fair trade handicrafts and so are continuously looking at new products from fair trade producers.

If you are interested to find out more about DWP, why not have a look at their website www.dwp-rv.de

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Bananas, Mangoes and Pineapples + Fair Trade = AgroFair

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The Netherlands based, AgroFair Europe B.V. is a fresh fruit company, co-owned by farmers in Africa and Latin America. AgroFair introduced the first fair trade fresh fruit into Europe ten years ago and its products are now sold in Europe and the USA. The organisation imported the world’s first fair trade bananas in 1996 and in 2002 became the first to import fair trade mangoes and pineapples.

Shared Interest has worked with AgroFair since 2008. Since then, AgroFair has grown in size and stature as an importer and distributor of organic and fair trade tropical fresh fruit. What makes AgroFair’s way of working unique is its ownership structure. The fruit growers own a 50% stake in the company, they are represented on the board and at annual shareholders’ meetings they also receive a share of profits. AgroFair buys all its products directly from the producers or their organisations, without the intervention of intermediary buyers.

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Customer Spotlight – Cepicafe Peru

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Cepicafe, one of Shared Interest’s most established Peruvian Coffee and Cocoa customers has recently been visited by the famous choclatier – Pierre Marcolini.

Marcolini came in search of Peru´s white gold: the Porcelana variety of cacao, so named for its white-coloured cocoa pod from which the beans are extracted. This delicate strain of cocoa, it is prized for its unique and unmistakable aroma and taste.

As Cepicafe has a strategy of quality, not price – a dedication to producing high quality cacao instead of high volumes of low quality cacao; this visit is a positive step in confirming the success of such a strategy and the dedication the farmers have shown in cultivating such rare strain of cacao in the hope of improving their quality of life.

For his visit, Marcolini was accompanied by French TV channel, Canal 3, who are producing a documentary on the production of chocolate from bean to the edible jewels created by Marcolini. This will be aired in France in the near future.

On a wider scale, Marcolini’s visit will most certainly benefit the entire Peruvian cacao sector as it becomes known worldwide as a quality cacao producer. According to Santiago Paz, Cepicafe’s representative, “this opens the door for other cacao importers who are looking, not for the lowest priced cacao available, but to form economically and socially viable business relations with cacao producers based in equality, transparency and respect”.

Will this chocolate be sold as Fairtrade? We don’t know, however, as one of the aims of the Fairtrade standards is to “facilitate long-term trading partnerships and enable greater producer control over the trading process” (FLO), this visit and interest from Marcolini can certainly be considered a success for all involved.

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Customer Focus – Dukunde Kawa Cooperative (MUSASA)

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MUSASA was founded in 2000 with 300 founder members and was legally incorporated in 2002. The cooperative is located in Ruli sector of Rushashi district and cultivates its high quality coffee near a mountain gorilla habitat of central Rwanda.  In 2003, Musasa cooperative built a washing station in Rushashi district with the help of a USD 80K donation from the Rwandan ministry of defense (MINADEF). In exchange for the donation, Musasa cooperative agreed to donate each year to a government fund that will be used to construct other washing stations throughout Rwanda.   Since 2003 they have produced high quality fully washed coffee for the high-end international market.

They became FLO certified in 2004 and have managed to sell their coffee at good prices which has resulted in improving the living standards of their members.  With proceeds from their fair trade sales, the co-operative has been able to initiate various projects such as; construction of a single disc pulper for their new mini washing station aimed at improving quality. They have also purchased computers to improve their accounting department, and bought bicycles for each of their production zones, for the transportation of cherries to the washing station.   Other projects include; a special credit program to pay for the school fees for their member’s children, credit facility to help members pay for their health insurance and loan facilities for members to buy cows. An example of the impact they have had in the community is that they have enabled their members to renovate their homes and now they all have tile or iron sheet roofs rather than grass, thus improving their quality of life.

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Customer Focus Zaytoun

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Zaytoun became a customer of Shared Interest in 2008. Zaytoun is a community interest company established in 2004 to support marginalized farming communities in Palestine. Palestine is the home of the olive tree, supporting over half the population and dominating the agricultural landscape. Zaytoun finds a market place for Palestinian produce in the UK.  As a non-profit company their primary objectives lie with the welfare of the producing communities. They invest in empowering farming communities and developing the agricultural infrastructure in Palestine.  Zaytoun work with an agricultural cooperative in Palestine called Al Zaytouna. They have met with the organizers of Al Zaytouna many times and formed a relationship based on work, respect and solidarity.  The aim of Al Zaytouna is to defend the olive tree and market its products. They work across the West Bank and are focused on working on cooperative principles to give the farmers a stronger voice, invest in agricultural infrastructure and access new markets for their olive oil.

As well as selling olive oil etc Zaytoun also organise Harvest tours for people who are interested in meeting and seeing the farmers in Palestine.Zaytoun have strong relationships with other Shared Interest customers such as Equal Exchange Trading and Canaan. The term loan that Canaan received from Shared Interest was used for a building and asset purchases, Zaytoun visited Canaan to see how the money had helped.

Heather Masoud was recently accredited for the Women in Ethical Business Awards.

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Customer Focus Equal Exchange Inc

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Established in 1986 Equal Exchange Inc (EEI) have for a long time been pioneers in the fair trade coffee market. They offer coffee, tea and chocolate products from over 30 farmer cooperatives in 18 countries. They are now 93 worker owners strong, with a broader network that includes 400 loyal investors, more than 300 food cooperatives, hundreds of cafes and other stores, and more than a million consumers. 2008 was a very productive year for EEI. With a sales growth of 17% they experienced their most profitable year in their history, testament to the foundations laid and commitment of their knowledgeable team.

We have been working together with Equal Exchange, Inc since 1995. The facility we operate with EEI is a unique one. They operate a buyer line of credit for their fair trade purchases and also guarantee a line of credit for producers who either do not have access to a Shared Interest account or do not have enough credit available on their own line.

Working together, Equal Exchange and Shared Interest are helping to create sustainable fair trade businesses that allow producers in the developing world the ability to trade their way out of poverty.

If you would like to learn more about becoming a customer of Shared Interest, please click here to visit our website.

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New Lending in Kenya

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A new Export Credit Facility and Term Loan has been approved for handicraft group Bega Kwa Bega, based in Korogocho, one of Nairobi’s largest slums.  Bega Kwa Bega is a Kiswahili expression meaning shoulder to shoulder. The goup was founded in 1991 with the help from the Catholic Church in Korogocho to help rehabilitate girls and women rescued from the streets.  Bega Kwa Bega works with 4 groups which are split into product types – baskets, jewellery, dolls, and tye-dye fabric.  Each group has 2 leaders who are democraticaly elected every year and who represent their groups along with an overall project coordinator.

Currently Bega Kwa Bega have limited resources for their production meaning they are unable to welcome any new girls or women who have been rescued from the streets into the group.  However, provision of the Term Loan from Shared Interest will help Bega Kwa Bega to purchase further sewing machines and other equipment required for production therefore enabling the groups to welcome new girls and women into the group and increase production.

More information about Bega Kwa Bega at www.begakwabega.com

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South American Fairtrade Coffee Harvest Kicks Off!

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Many of our South American coffee producer groups are gearing up for this year’s harvest.  Depending on their altitude, harvest can start as early as March and last until November.  So what a better way to kick off the harvest than by lending nearly 1 million dollars to one of our larger coffee producers?

Established in 2001 as a private company made up of 5 individual cooperative, Cafe Peru provides 5,783 coffee producers access to the international market.  They also provide technical training (finance, agribusiness skills, etc) to their producers and invests in the social infrastructure of the community with communal roads, schools and health programs.

This is the largest amount of lending that Shared Interest has ever sent to a producer group and we’re very excited that Cafe Peru is looking forward to such a successful year!

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Namayiana - Fair Trade Producer Visit Click here to learn how you can invest in fair trade.

Click here to donate to the Shared Interest Foundation 		Mexican coffee farmer at work in the fields


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