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We regularly provide you with the most important news, articles, topics, projects and ideas for One World – No Hunger.
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by Carolin Schaar
gebana, a Swiss fair trade company, follows the principle of "sharing" with its corporate philosophy: farming families in the Global South participate directly in the turnover of their online shop. The company invests directly in the producing countries, thus promoting economic growth and creating jobs. Caroline Schaar from Gebana on the approach behind it.
From banana women to trading company
gebana was born out of a women’s movement in Frauenfeld in Switzerland in the 1970s, when activists known as “banana women” made consumers aware of how female workers were exploited on Latin American plantations. The group grew into a Switzerland-wide movement that organised attention-grabbing protests and went on to found the “Arbeitsgemeinschaft GErechter BANAnenhandel”, gebana for short, in the 1980s.
In 1998, gebana AG was incorporated as a trading company with the aim of combining social and ecological values in an economically viable manner and establishing holistic sustainable supply chains for comestibles. Soon after, the company began to invest in local processing facilities and establish direct contact with farming families in the Global South, working closely with local partners to create value chains in Brazil, Burkina Faso, Tunisia, Togo and Benin. Today, gebana sells these partners’ products in bulk directly to consumers through its own online shop as well as to retailers through a Dutch subsidiary.
A holistic approach to sustainability
Strengthening the economic power of countries with massive poverty, creating dignified working conditions and increasing women’s involvement in the economic system – these are all major objectives for gebana. The company recognised early on that such changes could not be brought about through the price of agricultural goods alone. Based on a holistic approach, gebana establishes independent businesses in countries of origin, creating value and employment locally, transferring know-how and paying taxes. Maintaining direct contact with farming families enables the company to ensure that bonuses actually reach their intended recipients, but these direct interactions also provide opportunities to discuss organic farming or issues such as child labour.
Moreover, gebana’s activities in the Global South are always designed with longevity and perseverance in mind: establishing cooperatives and corporations and investing in ecological farming take a lot of time.
The company invests predominantly in West Africa, where other foreign investors are deterred by currency crises and military coups; for example, it is currently building a factory in Burkina Faso that will create 1000 new jobs in mango and cashew processing. The majority female workers will have access to modern infrastructure, a hospital ward and child care, and the switch to more technologically advanced procedures will boost skilled employment.
Sharing as a cornerstone of economic activity
Companies that only share their profits with investors rather than critically examining their entire supply chain promote inequality. Labels and certifications ensure minimum standards, but they often serve as fig leaves. Traders in raw materials, in particular, often care little about the actual conditions on the ground as long as the goods bear the right label.
This is why gebana has chosen a different path: the company knows its producers and actively supports them by sharing turnover and profits within the value chain.
Fair trading companies usually pay a fair trade bonus and, if applicable, an organic farming premium on top of the raw goods price. Sales prices are set after margins at numerous other trade levels have been optimised, and vastly exceed the original price of the raw materials. This is why gebana has developed its own model that turns customary pricing calculations on their head: the company pays ten percent of the sales price achieved in its online shop to the farming families – on top of the raw materials price and any premiums. These payments are distributed among all the farming families that supply gebana, including those that provide products for the bulk retail business.
This means that while each individual farming family receives less, the circumstances of an entire region are substantially improved.
Bridging the gap between farming families and consumers
Kossivi Donko, a cocoa farmer and picker from Kawu-Cope village in Togo, says of gebana’s profit-sharing: “Today we are still very happy about this gesture from gebana. The money allows us to buy materials to maintain our fields, or young seedlings to renew or expand our plots of land. [...] This is the third year in a row that we have received this payment to encourage us, and we are very happy about it.”
In 2022, gebana paid out a total of 967,520 euros in revenue shares directly to farming families in southern countries – a sum the company hopes to at least double over the coming years by integrating more farming families, but also by growing its sales.
This method of doing business creates a link between farming families in the Global South and consumers in the Global North, which together with gebana form a system. If this system makes a profit, that too is shared: with all the company’s staff in the North and the South, with investors and also with customers in the online shop. While the shareholders have so far always reinvested their third of the profits into the company, this profit sharing represents a very interesting wage supplement especially for the currently 800 people working at the company’s subsidiaries in the Global South – one which in turn increases their purchasing power.