Traidcraft

Inspiring a Fair Trade Revolution

Joe Osman

• Publisher: Lion Books
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780745981031
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

Traidcraft was a true pioneer of the Fair Trade movement and has played a major role in changing the landscape of ethical shopping. This book charts the history of Traidcraft from its birth in 1979 up until its 40th anniversary in 2019. The story is told through the eyes of one of its longest serving members, Joe Osman, who joined Traidcraft in its early days. The book features stories and anecdotes covering his extensive experience of travelling and putting fair trade into practice.

Traidcraft was always an initiative rooted in the Christian faith and those origins are explored, as are the challenges of putting faith into action through a different way of doing business. Including contributions from many ex-members of staff, including its founder, as well as external collaborators and producers, this is a fascinating history of a truly revolutionary company.

PART ONE

The Early Years

Chapter 1

BEGINNINGS

It was a fairly ordinary Sunday morning at church in the summer of 1976, but one which was to have enormous impact on my life, not just in terms of work and career but in shaping my Christian faith. The vicar of my church in the small village of Newbottle, midway between Durham and Sunderland, casually mentioned that a friend of his might want some temporary staff for the Christmas season in the business he ran in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I had time on my hands and was very uncertain of the future, having failed to complete year one of an engineering degree.

Ray Skinner was that vicar and he would go on to be the first Chair of Traidcraft, and Richard Adams was that friend and he would go on to be founder of Traidcraft. I didn’t take much persuading and I started working for Tearcraft along with another member of the Newbottle youth group who would turn out to be my future sister-in-law. The next few months were a complete joy. Even though I was merely packing mail order parcels, I couldn’t wait to start work each day. Here was a small organization in which everyone was valued, everyone was part of the team, and everyone was made to feel involved in something that was certainly more radical and mission-based than even I imagined at that time.

The story of the birth of Tearcraft has been well told by Richard Adams in his book, Who Profits?, which documents his journey from greengrocer to managing director of a limited company selling mostly jute hanging baskets, and describes the application of his Christian faith to a business which would put the principles of love and justice into practice through commercial activity.⁴ Tearcraft emerged from Agrofax Labour Intensive Products, which was Richard’s initial business, and later became a subsidiary of Tearfund, which had financed some of the first purchases of handicrafts from Bangladesh.

Over the next year, a seasonal job turned into a permanent one as the possibility of continuing the degree course receded and I found myself involved in general warehouse duties, as well as starting to get to grips with the technicalities of importing products. In a small organization this principle of “learning on the job” became part of the culture since it’s not always possible to hire the experienced or the qualified. Moreover, as the organization grew it remained an important principle and, in later years, when I was in a position of recruiting staff myself, I would pay as much heed to an interviewee’s “heart” for the organization’s mission and objectives as I did to their experience and qualifications.

Tearcraft at that time was based in central Newcastle-upon-Tyne, close to a busy bus station. The six-storey India House in Carliol Square was originally the site of the Newcastle jail but now proved ideal for warehouse and office space. Seeing those first consignments delivered must have been quite a spectacle. Containerization had not yet developed as the standard mode of sea freight, so those early deliveries from Bangladesh were in huge wooden crates stacked onto flatbed lorries and the crates were unloaded by being dropped onto the road. There was no forklift truck, indeed there was no need for one given that storage was on the fifth floor, accessed by a goods lift. The age of health and safety had not yet emerged and it’s highly likely that none of the ways we did warehousing then would be allowed today.

Products became familiar to us, as did the names of the producers who supplied them. There was an enormous range of jute sikas (hanging baskets) each with their own Bengali name, all of which we knew intimately. We knew the producers by name too, such as “CORR–The Jute Works” which was the first and biggest supplier (CORR standing for “Christian Organization for Relief and Rehabilitation”).

The mission of Tearcraft was very clear in those early days. Richard Adams’ vision was for something that became known as “alternative marketing” and then “alternative trade” – in other words, doing trade differently, putting people ahead of profit. It was a vision that was shared and discussed among all staff. Representatives of producer organizations we traded with would come to visit and we spent time together discussing what we were doing. The organization openly shared its Christian roots, and times of prayer and worship were integral to working life. Our parent body, Tearfund, very specifically adhered to Christian principles in its relief work.

But cracks in the relationship were beginning to emerge – both theological and philosophical. CORR–The Jute Works was a Catholic-based organization which did not fulfil Tearfund’s “evangelical” requirement for overseas partners. Also, I’m not sure that Tearfund really understood the “alternative” nature of what Tearcraft was seeking to be. One example of this was an advertising campaign that used the slogan “Tearcraft depends on them” next to pictures of handicraft producers. This fitted with the principles of equity and partnership that characterized the relationship between Tearcraft and its overseas suppliers. Tearfund were upset about this advert, perhaps for reasons relating to the dynamics of the relationship between donor and recipient of aid. Traditionally, aid had been understood as a one-way benefit – from donor to recipient – rather than a partnership.

Many of the customers of Tearcraft were also Tearfund supporters. Much of Tearcraft’s business was conducted through what became known as Tearcraft Voluntary Representatives, who raised money for Tearfund but also bought and sold Tearcraft products in their churches. They were supplied with materials provided by Tearcraft which contained information on producers and on the theme of injustice in international trade. In early 1979, Tearcraft started an initiative to engage voluntary reps further by introducing them to producers. In February, the first so-called “study tour” was organized. These tours were led by Jan Simmonds who was also involved in the development of the voluntary reps initiative. This was something that became an integral part of the future Traidcraft and was the forerunner of what became known as “meet the people” tours. I decided to pay my own way to join a group of voluntary reps on one such tour; this became my first trip abroad.

My experience of the tour was truly transformational and paved the way for a working life in Fair Trade. The tour covered Bangladesh and West Bengal in India, visiting some of the producers supplying Tearcraft. There was then time for a bit of tourism in Delhi and Agra in the north of India. The first place we visited was Kolkata (then called Calcutta) and I confess that my first experience was one of fear! The city in the 1970s was an absolute nightmare with what can only be described as a dilapidated infrastructure bursting at the seams with people, many of whom were refugees from the Bangladesh war of independence. Consequently, the number of street dwellers and beggars was enormous. Tourism in this part of India was in its infancy, so a young European venturing into the street for a look around caused me to be very much the centre of attention. I quickly sought the security of my hotel! I’m not particularly proud of that and I have been back to Kolkata on numerous occasions and not experienced anything like it. The city was transformed over the next couple of decades and ultimately became one of my favourite overseas destinations.

The study tour exposed us all to the realities of poverty. It included visits to urban slums and rural villages where poverty was still evident, though in a different way – urban slums are dirty, messy and totally obvious; with rural poverty, you needed to dig beneath the sometimes idyllic surroundings to see what was happening. A visit to some of the Jute Works producers involved a river trip and a long walk to get to a village called Boali where I was able to recognize the jute sikas that we sold.

The experience of this first trip overseas resulted in two overriding thoughts. First, it showed that what we were doing had the potential to make a difference, working with people of all faiths and none. Secondly, it highlighted something that one of my colleagues often said, with which I completely agreed. We were working with producers who had tremendous skills and who were very hard working, and yet were still vulnerable and poor. Purely by being born in a culture and part of the world different to ours, the dice were loaded against them. This drove my sense of injustice at the situation, and a desire to help.

At home, discussions about the relationship between Tearcraft and its parent company, Tearfund, were taking place. Tearfund wanted to bring Tearcraft more under its evangelical criteria and also under its strategic control. Richard wanted to pursue a more radical direction, informed by his interpretation of his Christian faith, and apply the principles of love and justice to international trade. Those of us not directly engaged in the debate with Tearfund watched from a distance. Fortunately, there was transparency in communications, something that would become a feature of Traidcraft and, indeed, a key feature of what would define an “Alternative Marketing Organization”. Most of the staff were fully behind Richard Adams and, inevitably, he would need to move on while management and control of Tearcraft would gradually be integrated into the structure and vision of Tearfund.

Richard wanted to continue with his vision and he could only do this by being separate and independent of a parent body like Tearfund who, to their credit, were helpful when the terms of separation were agreed. When Richard founded Traidcraft later in 1979, several members of Tearcraft staff left and joined him. I stayed at Tearcraft though my heart was really with the new organization. I was still fully focused on purchasing, importing and logistics. The new staff that Tearcraft employed were great and I got on well with them, but it was a very strange time. In founding Traidcraft, Richard had come to an arrangement with Tearfund. He would purchase, at discounted rates, the stocks from all those suppliers (like the Jute Works) which did not meet their supplier or purchasing criteria (requiring them to be owned, organized or part of an evangelical Christian governance structure). Whether mischievously or because Carliol Square was just the cheapest and best place to set up, Traidcraft became a next-door neighbour to Tearcraft. Staff fraternization was commonplace – after all we knew each other well – whether on the roof over lunch or on the fire escape to which both organizations had access. In fact, the sale of those discounted goods to Traidcraft became an easy logistics arrangement since we merely had to open the fire door and hand over the stock.

Those early days must have been very confusing to customers. Some of those voluntary reps began their support for both organizations and we would cross paths in the Christian world for years to come. For example, Tearcraft would exhibit and sell at the Christian arts festival Greenbelt which, in 1979, then became the launch event for Traidcraft. As I set up the Tearcraft stall that year, who should I discover setting up in the next marquee but Richard Adams and Traidcraft. Friendly rivalry prevailed, and I still don’t know who banked the most sales!

4 Adams, Who Profits?.

Chapter 2

YET MORE BEGINNINGS

Tearcraft left Newcastle a few years later and most of the staff were made redundant, although a few moved to London. Fortunately, before this, I managed to get a job at Traidcraft looking after the warehouse, distribution and logistics. It was my first senior role and taken on without any experience of managing people; it was a steep learning curve. Traidcraft invested heavily in my training and I embarked on the first of several management courses soon after my appointment.

The answer to the question “When was Traidcraft founded?” will usually be 1979, although legally it was a little earlier. The alternative view, which I share, is that the journey started with Richard Adams and continued through those early Tearcraft days, into Traidcraft. It was Tearcraft that chose to take a different route. The culture that Richard had developed in Tearcraft, and which was well established by the time he had left, was transplanted into Traidcraft and flourished.

Over the years, although the two organizations went their separate ways, relationships were cordial, and we still shared many of the same customers and overseas suppliers. When Tearcraft, or “Created” as it would become known, was wound up in 2015, I had the privilege of representing Traidcraft at a thanksgiving service celebrating their work. Richard Adams was also invited as founder. It was an emotional and memorable event, tinged with a sense of melancholy. It’s ironic that some of the Created suppliers were taken on by Traidcraft in 2015 and some of the Created stocks sold on at a discounted rate. We had come full circle after more than thirty years, and maybe reached a point of restoration and healing.

In its first year of trading, Traidcraft published a hand drawn, two-colour, brown and beige “album” (catalogue) just in time for the Christmas season. Most of the products were brown so it seemed appropriate! It contained over a hundred craft products, many of them from suppliers transferred over from Tearcraft. In fact, more than 50% of the products were from the Jute Works, including a large range of jute sikas together with other suppliers in Bangladesh like the International Union for Child Welfare (IUCW) who supplied the cane baskets for those sikas. In addition, a local youth job creation project in north east England made wooden brackets on which to hang those sikas and baskets. While mail order and voluntary reps were yet to develop any meaningful sales revenue, it was the wholesale channel, direct to shops, that was to bring a modest profit at the end of that year and the next.

A couple of key factors contributed to get Traidcraft off the ground commercially. First, sikas and baskets were well in demand and fashionable in the UK, with every house seemingly needing a hanging basket. The range available from Traidcraft was competitive, unique, of excellent quality, with twenty designs and sizes to choose from. Over the years that followed, Traidcraft exhibited its range at all the main UK gift fairs and many of us donned our best clothes to act as sales reps. I recall drawing the short straw for the Torquay gift fair, not because Torquay in January isn’t a nice place to be, but because it was the longest drive in a transit van from Newcastle. We couldn’t afford to send two people to staff the trade stand, so it was pretty full on! It was perhaps providential that hanging baskets were so popular at that time because, just a few years later, the demand for them disappeared almost completely.

Secondly, the contribution made by the Jute Works was pivotal. In a conventional supplier/buyer relationship, power dynamics exist. In an alternative supplier/buyer relationship, it’s more of a partnership. In the world of alternative trade, the word “supplier” was often interchangeable with the word “partner”. Jute Works was in a much stronger position than Traidcraft, so offered 120 days financial credit terms, which was a great help to cash flow. More radically, it turned on its head the principle of pre-finance, or advance payment, which is a key component of the Fair Trade model even today, but who has ever heard of the supplier pre-financing the buyer?

Traidcraft continued its radical mission, focusing on issues of economic injustice. Yes, it talked about poverty and poor producers and poor countries, but its focus was on tackling the causes of poverty. It gave prominence to the producers who made these products and to the fact that buying them was not some act of charity or a hand-out to poor people. It also continued to talk about its Christian roots. That first two-colour catalogue had a section entitled “What is Traidcraft?” which was replicated in subsequent catalogues and which read:

Traidcraft is a company founded and run by people trying to put into practice some of the implications of their own Christian faith. We feel that there is every opportunity to de...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part One: The Early Years
• Part Two: Into the 1990s
• Part Three: A New Millennium
• Part Four: Part of a Global Movement
• Part Five: Innovation – A History of Fair Trade “Firsts”
• Part Six: Traidcraft and Supermarkets
• Part Seven: Christian Roots and Mission
• Part Eight: Traidcraft’s Most Recent History
• Epilogue: A Personal Reflection by Richard Adams
• Appendix 1: Traidcraft’s Objectives
• Appendix 2: Traidcraft website blog post, 2015
• Appendix 3: WFTO: Ten Principles of Fair Trade
• Appendix 4: Timeline