Well Earth
Well Earth is Frontier Co-op’s sustainable impact sourcing program. Well Earth projects enable us to build relationships in our sourcing communities, strengthen resilience of our farmers and supply chain, and create life-changing social and environmental impact in communities around the world.
Our priority is to help suppliers improve their social and environmental practices, and, in line with our ethos as a co-op, build relationships.
Goals:
- Build and foster relationships in our sourcing communities
- Strengthen resilience of our farmers and supply chain
- Create life-changing social and environmental impact
- Well Earth ensures we can have a positive social, environmental, and business impact in our sourcing communities.
- Well Earth improves the lives of farmers, their families, and their communities.
Well Earth ensures customers can have a positive impact in the world through their purchases of products from the Frontier Co-op family of brands.
Since 2007, Frontier Co-op’s Well Earth program has been the foundation of our responsible sourcing efforts, fostering long-term relationships with suppliers worldwide. While this legacy program remains central to our mission, the evolving global landscape has prompted us to rethink our approach.
Today, we are proud to introduce a more comprehensive strategy that not only continues to invest in supplier resilience but also emphasizes transparency and traceability across our supply chain. By working collaboratively within our industry, we aim to tackle larger systemic challenges that require collective action. Together, we believe we can make a greater impact on global social and environmental issues.
Goal: $5 Million Invested
Our goal is to have $5 million invested in supply chain development through Well Earth and externally-funded programs by FY26. Well Earth, Frontier Co-op’s impact sourcing program, ensures the long-term sustainability of our supply chain by investing in our partners and their communities at origin to improve their social and environmental impact. We empower our suppliers, helping them increase their market share through investment in value-added processes, and retain more of that value to support their businesses and their communities. Through Well Earth, Frontier Co-op provides funding, technical expertise, and industry knowledge to maximize opportunities for these partners.
Community Building
• Addressing community-specific needs including education, medical and basic needs support
Business Building
• Value-added processes including steam pasteurization and grinding
• Agricultural practices – organic transition
Climate Resiliency
• Crop diversification including comestible crops
USAID COOPERATIVE DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM (CDP)
Starting in 2018, Frontier Co-op partnered with the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Cooperative Development Program (CDP) to implement the Safe Processing in Cooperative Enterprise (SPICE) project. The goal of SPICE is to drive value-added processes and opportunities back to source to ultimately increase economic opportunities in these communities, and create value that can be reinvested in both community and business building activities. This project started with our partners in Sri Lanka, and has since grown to include two other projects in India and Guatemala.
CDP PROJECT #1 — SRI LANKA
Sri Lanka is renowned for black pepper, nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. However, the lack of a skilled workforce, awareness of US Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) requirements, and poor food safety infrastructure has had a detrimental impact on Sri Lanka’s processing capacity. Despite the country’s production of high quality raw materials, many in the industry are moving to other origins, which further degrades farmer livelihoods and overall economic security and opportunity. To address these challenges, Frontier Co-op, USAID, and local cooperative SOFA (the Small Organic Farmers Association), are working together to:
• Improve SOFA’s internal cooperative management
• Train workers in skilled and semi-skilled processing
• Train agricultural extension workers and farmers in good agricultural practices (GAP)
• Equip a processing facility for FSMA-compliant production
CDP PROJECT #2 — INDIA
The future of agricultural farming communities is growing increasingly uncertain as farmers – especially in women-led communities like the tea region of Kumaon, India – face economic challenges, an ongoing pandemic, and the hard realities of climate change that degrade the soil, priming it for landslides during monsoon season. To address this growing vulnerability, Frontier Co-op is establishing a tea processing facility in Kumaon in partnership with Young Mountain Tea. Local farmers will hold an ownership stake in the new venture, which will not only provide economic benefits to the farmers and their communities, but also help ensure they’re more resilient to the impacts of climate change.
CDP PROJECT #3 — GUATEMALA
Similar to Sri Lanka, Guatemala’s comparative advantage with high value export spice crops, as well as its ability to add value through processing, has been impacted by FSMA. FEDECOVERA has been Frontier Co-op’s supply partner since 2007. As an established second-level cooperative federation, FEDECOVERA aggregates organic cardamom, allspice, and turmeric from its member cooperatives and performs primary processing and export services. However, FEDECOVERA historically has not had the capacity to perform secondary processing of its members’ product (i.e.,pasteurization, grinding, and sterile handling), instead selling to international customers who perform the value-adding processes in the US and Europe. To address these challenges, Frontier Co-op, USAID, and FEDECOVERA are working together to:
• Improve facility infrastructure
• Support Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) certification
• Build capacity of the team to implement pasteurization, grinding, and sterile handling processes
• Provide training, in Spanish, on high-level food safety principles, good manufacturing practices, contamination control, and pest management
COBÁN, GUATEMALA
Since 2007, Frontier Co-op has partnered with FEDECOVERA, a cooperative in Cobán, Guatemala, to source our organic turmeric, cardamom and allspice
