Our Newest Licensing Partners
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Alpha Health of Burnaby BC, Canada. An industry leader supplying superior nutritional products for health-conscious consumers.
The company today specializes in sales of "private label" products to national distributors, food service distributors and retail grocery chains.
To'ak Chocolate of Quito, Ecuador. A small chocolate company working with 14 family farmers through Asociacion Piedra de Plata.
Welcome!
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Quick Links to Cooperating Certifiers
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Dear Friends and Colleagues,
It is time again for our newsletter. Spring here in upstate New York is late, but finally the trees are blossoming and the meadows lush green and sprinkled with yellow, blue and purple. In the same manner the FairTSA landscape is growing in diversity of producers and companies for whom business is more than a look at the bottom line or just adding a logo to the packaging. That's what we stand for - growing a diverse and dedicated Fair Trade community.
Dr. Winfried Fuchshofen and the FairTSA Team
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Kokonut Pacific
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Kokonut Pacific is a producer of premium virgin organic coconut oil from the Solomon Islands. The business procedures of the entire company are set up to ensure the fair treatment of the farming families that produce the coconut oil. In fact, it is more than that - it is about creating a whole cottage industry on the household level for family farmers to produce their own coconut oil and make a decent living in the process. Dr. Dan Etherington, founder of Kokonut Pacific, invented the Direct Micro Expelling or DME process that produces pure virgin oil at the farm household level within one hour of opening the coconuts, resulting in an exceptional coconut oil quality. DME coconut oil production provides cash income for women and youth in remote villages where no other income-earning opportunities exist. The work is safe, pleasant and accompanied by chatter and laughter. The workers are typically members of an extended family and a proportion of their income is generously shared amongst the community for the common good, as is customary. |
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DME Coconut Oil Production at Home
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Kokonut Pacific's commitment doesn't stop there. Typically, every other year they hold a general meeting of the entire Solomon Islands Virgin Coconut Oil Producers Association (VCOPA). It is an expensive exercise because of the logistics of bringing at least 2 people from each production site to the conference location and hosting them for several days. For example, in November 2013, 70 producers and local staff met in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. They came from the outer islands and from all over the country by every form of transport: truck, canoe, ferry and aircraft. It lasted a week, and people were accommodated on site. There were significant discussions, teaching on quality control, sharing of issues by the producers, and teaching on business principles.
Now Kokonut Pacific is intent on bringing their commit- ment to a whole new level: they have established a foundation whose purpose is to establish the "Coconut Technology Centre" with goals of demonstrating and refining best practices for village-based coconut production, training additional producers, and research and development options for further downstream processing of coconut products. We are proud to have Kokonut Pacific as a new partner in our community of dedicated Fair Trade companies.
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Kokonut Pacific in Action
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FairTSA visits Costa Rica,
California & Germany
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IOIA Meeting in Costa Rica:
On March 21st, Winfried gave a presentation on the history and current developments of the Fair Trade movement and the role of FairTSA at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Inter- national Organic Inspectors Association (IOIA). In the beautiful environment of the Tilajari Resort in the vicinity of the Arenal Volcano in Costa Rica, where many organic inspectors and certifier representatives met, a lively and stimulating discussion ensued. Driven by the personal experiences of the inspectors in the field, it turned out that the FairTSA concept of Fair Trade certification was greeted with an enthusiastic and encouraging response.
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BioFach: FairTSA continued to reach out at the world's leading trade fair for organic food in Nuremberg, Germany in February. New strategic partnerships for FairTSA emerged, among them an equivalency agreement with IBD, a Brazilian certifier.
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Expo West: FairTSA Board Chair, John Tremblay, and Winfried Fuchshofen attended Natural Expo West in Anaheim, CA, to meet with old and new clients. The photograph below shows John and Winfried with Richard Etherington, Market Manager for Kokonut Pacific, one of our recent licensees.(see above article) Like BioFach, Natural Expo West turned out to be a very successful event for FairTSA.
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Winfried, John and Richard from Kokonut Pacific
at Natural Expo West
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