Fair Trade--'Are You Serious?' Case Study

Petra, our favorite volunteer!



Following the process, from artisans hard at work...

...to finished product!

My husband has a parable about his days as a consultant for Kaizen:


“What is the difference between involvement and commitment?” asks the earnest young consultant. “Ah”, says the wise old team leader, “did you have bacon and eggs for breakfast this morning? The chicken was involved, the pig was committed.”


We worked hard to get our membership from World Fair Trade Organization-Asia and beat the odds to do so. There are only 4 legitimately registered companies in Thailand, authorized to carry the Fair Trade logo on their products. We take seriously our commitment not to exploit the producers. Over the 7 years of our existence, we have driven down prices to normal wholesale levels. In some cases this meant taking 30% off the price of production. We’ve accomplished this without reducing the producers’ incomes or negotiating with them to bring their prices down.


This is not purely a philosophical position. As a business, we have the equal and opposite commitment of wanting to maximize profits. To reassure ourselves that we remain fair AND profitable we test our position occasionally so we can stand by the statements we make on our marketing material, to WFTO-Asia, to the producers and to the public.


The following blog is the report created by Petra Mackay, an Australian volunteer who visited us in October 2009. Unusually for a volunteer, she had some relevant understanding as she was studying ethnic communities in Southeast Asia at university. Importantly, she felt that she could live in an isolated village for 3-4 days without one word of the local language, which is much harder than it sounds.


We commissioned Petra to conduct a “time and motion” study to check whether we are in fact paying a fair amount for the work done. Since we had an observer in place, we asked her to comment on other questions. Have we just increased female workloads by bringing in the additional work, making them work longer hours in deteriorating conditions? Do the women have to hand the money over to the men thereby removing any discretion they might have about how it is spent?


Her report is fascinating. We attach it here in its entirety only removing the names for privacy. If anyone wants to commission work directly from the village, we are happy to make introductions and get out of the way. You will see from the report, that this particular village has good language skills and an understanding of the West.