A Banneton as Metaphor
I spent most of this week packing our Everyday Sourdough Kits and I was thinking about how far they've come. I can't quite remember, but I think we have been selling them for 2 years - cobbled together from various sources, poorly boxed and hand labeled, those first kits were labours of love, designed only really to accompany our online and on farm courses.
As we figured out more of what we are about, those kits evolved along with us. A commitment to limiting waste meant we switched to glass containers for the starter and jars. We developed our written materials to make sure they were answering the questions we received. We added dough scrapers and scrubbers because we felt the pain of having to clean out dried sourdough from bowls - the single strongest substance on the planet.
We learned on our feet about scaling and where to source sustainable packing materials and stickers. We hunted down suppliers who could work with us on a small scale and would be able to provide us with products as plastic free as possible. However, one problem remained...bannetons.
Cane bannetons should be a relatively sustainable product in and of themselves. Rattan cane is a renewable resource and, when harvested correctly, provide a good cash crop for people living in the rainforests where they grow. However, like with so many things industrialisation means that demand has started to outstrip production, resources are limited and workforces making things like baskets can be poorly paid and work in in bad conditions.
BC (Before Covid), we bought them from a variety of sources though mostly eBay. I had a "guy" in Manchester who supplied them and I hoped that what he said was true about where he was getting them from. Supply chains for things made in other parts of the world can be tricky, so we hoped.
And then everyone and their sister wanted to make sourdough bread, bannetons sold out (or were sold for crazy money) and I was stuck...
Forced to scale up, hope was no longer going to work for us. We needed a reliable source of ethically made bannetons. I looked at various options - many far out of my budget or, simply out of supply given the higher demand. I mentioned it in passing on Instagram and a message flashed in my inbox.
"I think I know someone who can help with bannetons."
Someone I had worked with many years ago at a summer camp in Minneapolis had gone on to be a buyer for a number of US retail chains, like Target and Anthropologie. She introduced me to a colleague, Jerry, who specialises in sourcing rattan in a sustainable way for retailers. BIG RETAILERS - multinational chains all over the world who buy units in 10s of thousands. I am sure he laughed when I said I would be ordering 100 units at a time, but he kept it to himself and put me in touch with another Jerry in Vietnam whose family operates a small scale rattan farm and weaving workshop. They don't have a website to link to, no alibaba presence, just an email address he checks every so often.
After a few emails back and forth and one patchy telephone call. We signed up to get 100 bannetons a month - a lot more than I would normally sell, but it means that they can plan production (and I figure I can always sell them on eBay, if I get a back log!). Every month, I email Jerry with the bank transfer order and every month, a parcel of bannetons arrive.
Is having bannetons shipped half way across the world the most sustainable solution? Of course not. Ideally, we would be sourcing from the UK, grown from organically sourced willow or wood pulp. Maybe one day we will, but for now, we try to make the best, most sustainable decisions we can with the small amount of resources we have available. I am happy to use our orders to support another small business and be transparent in our successes and the areas we can improve.
We try to take this approach to everything we sell. Our small size means we can't always make the most perfect product and are reliant on systems that don't always fit our ethics perfectly, but we always try to make thoughtful choices that mean I can happily pack my kits knowing that I have done everything in my power to ensure I used my resouces to the best of my ability.
And apparently Jerry's grandma wants to visit and is convinced I will be able to grow rice here, and if you know anything about me, you should know I am a sucker for grandmas teaching me things!!
Ok, off to pack more kits!!
Kat
