What is actually in place

Material reaches us three ways, and which one applies depends on the crop rather than on a policy:

• Directly from the smallholder households that grew it.
• Through the local cooperative, where a crop is aggregated before it moves.
• From other Vietnamese processors, for material that has already been dried or part-processed.

The third route is a normal part of this trade and we would rather name it than describe every lot as farm-direct. A buyer who needs a single sourcing route for a particular product should ask; it is answerable per product, not per company.

Every lot is traceable back to the garden it was grown in. That trace is what the lot code on the sack refers to, and it is the same reference the certificate of analysis for that lot carries, so a document and a sack can always be matched to each other.

Traceability is not the same as an audited chain of custody. What we can tell you is where a lot came from and what testing it passed; we do not currently operate a third-party-audited traceability scheme, and we do not describe ours as one.

Testing is done mainly by third-party laboratories rather than in our own lab, and results are issued per lot. Independent testing is the part of this we would rather pay for than assert.

Stated plainly, because a buyer's audit will ask and a vague page wastes everyone's week:

• There is no formal grower programme: no premium scheme, no long-term purchase guarantee, no farmer training.
• There is no third-party social or environmental audit of our supply chain.
• We do not measure or publish a carbon footprint for our products.

If any of these become a requirement for your business, tell the trade desk what the requirement is. Whether we can meet it is a question with a real answer rather than a marketing one.

Sourcing route, growing area and testing are answerable per product and per lot. The trade desk answers them directly.

Contact the trade desk →