Monday, March 06, 2006
We support fair trade... like the next guy
... but we don't support the troops, polar bears having ice in the arctic, nor do we support the Girl Scouts.
The truth is that most people don't actually "support" these issues--unless you call putting a bumper sticker on your car as "support". I have been known to buy cookies from girl scouts on occasion, we try not to drive the car except when necessary, we really don't want our boys and girls over there in Iraq when they could be down in Mississippi and Louisiana doing peacetime reconstruction on their homes there.
What we DO is pay a fair price to our artisans for all of the mate and bombilla craftwork we sell (some of the items are made by family anyhow). As for actually being certifiable (I mean fair trade, silly; not crazy) as far as we know, in all of our research, there is no true fair trade certification for yerba mate tea. I cannot speak for others [though like other companies we would like to say we also support fair trade!!]
If you have any information about obtaining such certification, or agencies which do so, it would be helpful; we are always looking. The exact same case is true for organic certification. La Merced will hopefully soon be ironing out their legal details for organic certification and we can sell their product as such. [We now carry La Merced Organic $4.60/250gr. as of June 1 06!]
The truth is that most people don't actually "support" these issues--unless you call putting a bumper sticker on your car as "support". I have been known to buy cookies from girl scouts on occasion, we try not to drive the car except when necessary, we really don't want our boys and girls over there in Iraq when they could be down in Mississippi and Louisiana doing peacetime reconstruction on their homes there.
What we DO is pay a fair price to our artisans for all of the mate and bombilla craftwork we sell (some of the items are made by family anyhow). As for actually being certifiable (I mean fair trade, silly; not crazy) as far as we know, in all of our research, there is no true fair trade certification for yerba mate tea. I cannot speak for others [though like other companies we would like to say we also support fair trade!!]
If you have any information about obtaining such certification, or agencies which do so, it would be helpful; we are always looking. The exact same case is true for organic certification. La Merced will hopefully soon be ironing out their legal details for organic certification and we can sell their product as such. [We now carry La Merced Organic $4.60/250gr. as of June 1 06!]
