Dear customer We produce the only FairWild certified Baobab Fruit Powder on the planet. Why is that important? Consumers are increasingly demanding proof of sustainability, traceability and ethical sourcing. According to research from The Center for Food Integrity, one-quarter of U.S. consumers are actively engaged in online conversations about responsible food sourcing. But how can food and beverage brands prove that their ingredients are ethical? This is where FairWild Certification comes in. For the past 10 years, FairWild has been the global certification for fair trading standards in wild-harvested crops. But perhaps most importantly it provides an absolute guarantee to both brands and their consumers that they are supporting an ethically sourced product. Baobab Fruit is a great example of such a product. Through FairWild Certification, it ticks all the ethical boxes and provides a wonderful backstory as well. By the way if you missed our previous newsletter, you can read it here (Baobab Fruit and immune protection). |
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The Uniqueness of Baobab The Baobab is one of Africa’s most iconic and remarkable trees. It can survive long periods of no rainfall in the driest, hottest conditions by living off large reserves of water stored in its trunk. Their unmistakeable shape, their breath-taking size and their extraordinary age all mark them out as exceptional. Some of the biggest trees have diameters of over 35 metres and have been aged at over 2,500 years. This means the Baobab Fruit Powder you are eating today may have come from a tree that was feeding people back in the times of Ancient Greece. The fruit is only ripe once it has dried on the branch, making Baobab unique in that the edible part of the fruit is actually a completely dry powder with a tangy citrus taste. It is thought that this process of dehydration concentrates the nutrients, making it one of the most nutrient-dense fruits on the planet. |
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Social Impact with Fair Trade We currently work with over 4.500 registered local harvesters, the vast majority of whom are women and the number is growing every year. We buy Baobab Fruit in rural areas, organize transport, extract the fruit powder and engage in international trade. Sustainable livelihoods, community development, gender empowerment, and ethical working conditions are at the heart of the FairWild Standard, and we are committed to improving the situation of people in the poorer regions of Zimbabwe and South Africa. Every season we register more and more harvesters, help them form local cooperatives, pay for organic assessments and certification for their caption areas, run regular training workshops, provide them with equipment, and pay every harvester a fair trade price. The extra income allows them to pay for school fees, additional food or household items. |
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Sustainability & Environmental Protection The protection of individual plant species and their wider ecosystems is a key component to FairWild’s sustainable resource management framework. Although Baobab tree populations across Africa are healthy and robust, deforestation of all tree species is a growing problem. Not from large-scale industrial logging, but from small-scale farmers clearing their surrounding forested land for subsistence agricultural production. Cultivating land in a drought-prone area is hard work with unpredictable results. However local communities in remote areas need to earn a living, and if cutting down a Baobab tree means making some money from cultivating the land it frees up then who can blame them? The solution is to make it more valuable for communities to protect the Baobab trees than to cut them down, and that is exactly what our Baobab Fruit operation does. By guaranteeing local communities a fair and predictable income through harvesting the fruit, and for far less effort, our harvesters are now conserving their Baobab trees for future generations. As a result there is a direct link between the growing demand for Baobab Fruit Powder, the preservation of sub-saharan Africa's indigenous Baobab tree forests and the livelihoods of the rural communities who live amongst them. The more Baobab that is consumed internationally, the more local communities we can bring in to the trade and the more trees will be protected. |
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Learn about FairWild If you would like to learn more about how sourcing FairWild certified products can benefit your business, the FairWild Foundation are hosting two webinars on Wednesday 27th May. Established over 10 years ago in response to the demand from consumers to understand their impact on people and planet, FairWild is the only independently audited standard that explicitly measures and combines the biodiversity impacts of wild-harvesting with grassroots Fair Trade principles. Every year FairWild inspectors annually undertake thorough and detailed on-site assessments of both sustainability and fair trading conditions of our Baobab operation. Through their independent third-party assessment, FairWild Certification allows our bulk Baobab customers to be able to prove to consumers that their Baobab Fruit Powder is responsibly and ethical sourced. |
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About EcoProducts B'Ayoba A joint venture between two leading Baobab Fruit producers, EcoProducts B’Ayoba is Africa's only FairWild, Organic and FSSC 22000 Version 4.1 certified Baobab operation. We have impeccable social-impact credentials, providing a much needed supplemental income to over 4,500 registered rural African harvesters and their families. Our supply chains are fully traceable and sustainable, with environmental and training programs in place to protect the Baobab Tree populations. As a result, we are a member of the Union for Ethical Biotrade. Our facility in South Africa has been audited under the FDA’s Foreign Suppler Verification Program (FSVP), a key requirement for all importers to the US.
- For US, Canadian & Latin American customers, we deliver from our Long Beach (California) warehouse.
- For European and Middle Eastern customers, we deliver from our Rotterdam (Netherlands) warehouse.
- For Asian and Australasian customers, we ship directly from South Africa.
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Promoting and formulating with Baobab Fruit Powder is all about knowledge, and our team has decades of combined experience to support you and your business in your efforts. Contact us to discuss any aspects of Baobab nutrition, functionality, new product development, research, PR, marketing or social impacts. Our team is ready to answer all of your questions, as well as provide you with samples, specifications and pricing. We look forward to working with you. |
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Henry Johnson Sales Manager Tel: +44 7921 137595 EcoProducts B'Ayoba Web: baobabexports.com |
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