“It started with the idea that we can do better as a community than fair trade. Fair trade, the market says the tea is worth $3 a pound. And then you have a manufacturer, a distributor, a wholesaler and a retailer, and everybody doubles that — so it ends up you’re selling it for $40 a pound, but the $3 a pound doesn’t change for the providers. So if we can knock out some of those links in the market chain, we can raise the value for the producer. What we do is we start with that $40, whatever the retail value is, and we commit to 50-60% of that going back to the producers. So instead of $3, you make $20, and we can do the distribution, the warehousing, the shipping, the marketing, all of it for that amount of money, and we’re learning we don’t lose money on that. We don’t make money, but what you do is you make community. And so what we’re trying to do with this global marketplace is really usher in a kind of radical notion of shared trade.” ~ Becca Stevens

Becca Stevens & the women of Thistle Farms in the Rector’s Forum at All Saints Church, Pasadena, on Sunday, November 10, 2019.

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