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Gabbi Loedolff has what many would
consider to be a dream job. As acreative buyer for handmade cosmetics
giant Lush, she travels the globe
sourcing quality ingredients for thecompany’s expansive range of freshproducts. She journeys from villages
in Ghana to the dry forests of theDominican Republic in search of fully
traceable and sustainable materials
that form the basis for the products,bringing Lush £454m in sales in thelast year alone. It has created a supply
chain that truly considers society as
a key stakeholder.
Lush was founded in 1995 and in
two decades has grown to more than
900 stores worldwide. The business is
run from its offices in Poole and has
expanded to six factories worldwide,
where its products are individuallycrafted by hand. Everything from26 | Quality World | September 2015the reclaimed wood interior of eachshop to the post-consumer recyclable
packaging creates an image of a brandthat puts ethics first. As a result of its
green practices the company has been
voted one of the best high street shops
in the UK, by Ethical Consumer, andrecently won Retailer of the Year at
the Australian Retailer Association’sAustralian Retail Awards.
The born-green company is often
used as an example of why ethicalsupply chains and financial successare not mutually exclusive, and Gabbi
and the Buying Team are at the heartof this process. As a creative buyer,Gabbi’s job is to move beyond the ideathat the lowest price is the bottom line
and instead focus on finding ingredientsthat support Lush’s core values –creating sustainable, fresh, handmade
products without animal testing,

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while safeguarding the welfare of theworker. Gabbi describes the Lush vision
as: “Sourcing beautiful, top quality
materials, while understanding thedevastation that’s facing nature andhow we can minimise our impact onthat. Profit is important but it has neverbeen the sole focus.”

A clear vision

Lush’s creative buying policy has
developed over the years to capture
a sense of transparency rarely seen
across a supply chain, especially one
spanning countries across the globe
and worming through conflict areas
where human rights abuses are rife.
The company insists the farms they use
employ the regenerative principles ofpermaculture – a system of permanent
agriculture involving studying andsimulating ecological patterns to create

ANImage: Gabbi works with cocoa
butter at Lush’s factory in Poolethecqi.org | 27a productive ecosystem. Sat in thebuying offices in Poole, Gabbi
begins to tell the story of the Lushsupply chain: “More than a decadeago we started to move beyond
just buying top quality materials
to working to understand our
supply chains – where materials
were coming from and who wasproducing them.
“We realised that, generally,
the traditional profit distribution
model did not benefit the people
growing or producing raw
materials, so we have made aneffort to reduce the number ofhands taking a cut of the profit
along the way. We work directlywith the growers, where possible,
to do more capacity building on
the ground to introduce thatvalue-adding process.”
One way Lush has made thesechanges is through creating theSLush (Sustainable Lush) Fund.
The premise for the fund is simple– the company wanted to movebeyond just buying ingredients todeveloping supportive partnerships
with the communities that produce
them. Of the company’s buying
spend, 2% is spent on the fund,including cultivating relationships
with communities and developing
an infrastructure to aid efficient
production. The fund now has 32projects in 19 different countries.
“We’re striving to create
self-sufficient projects,” says
Gabbi. “The communities needinvestment in the beginning,including funding to realise theirvision. It is their idea for how they
could produce something andhow they could grow it, based on
permaculture principles. Where
it’s a raw material we use, we canprovide a market for it and support
the initial infrastructure. We help
them create a funding proposal
so they get financial support but
our partners on the ground areaccountable as well.”28| Quality World | September 2015

Images anti-clockwise:
Employees hard at workin the Poole factoryusing fresh ingredients“Our process
is about doing
everything
to ensuretransparency
but also realising
there’s still achance thatsomewhere along
the line things
might go wrong”“Our long-term
vision for cocoa is
to have complete
traceability. We
want all of ourcocoa to comedirectly from small
communities
like the Peace
Community”

Image: The Peace Community of
San José de Apartadó, Columbia,
transporting cocoa beans that will
be sent to a processor in Holland tobecome Lush cocoa butter

The truth
about Fair Trade

Working with raw materials
across the supply chain can provechallenging. One of the mostdifficult ingredients to trace iscocoa. Historically, there havebeen concerns about the useof child labour in the cocoa
industry and it is almost
impossible to ensure the material
is truly Fair Trade. Governanceissues plague the industry,
with civil war often politicising
the production of cocoa andcorruption allegations preventing
much-needed investment. The
cocoa industry is in crisis. For
Lush the mission was clear – tosource ethical cocoa and overcome
the challenges of such a complex
supply chain.“My personal view isthat no certification is infallible,”says Gabbi. “Certification canprovide a great foundation but
there’s always a way of cheating
the system, even when buying
Fair Trade certified material
through a distributor. When we
made the move from conventional
to Fair Trade, one of the priorities
was finding people who could
ensure transparency.”
Gabbi visited communities andfarms to understand each step of
the supply chain, including how
the prices were decided, how thecommunities were benefiting, andwhat support and training they
were receiving.“Nothing is taken
at face value. I sat in on a numberof community meetings. I saw thefermentation, drying and sorting
facilities. I went with a shipment
to the dock to see every single
step and then visited the processor
again in Holland.”Peace in war

Lush has risen to the upperechelons of sustainable businessbecause it refuses to take the easy
option, priding itself on its work on

thecqi.org | 29

the ground. In 2010 the company
made the ambitious decision towork with the Peace Communityof San José de Apartadó, inColombia, to buy the 100%
Fair Trade cocoa used in products
such as their Charity Pot body
lotion and Peace massage bar.
In parts of Colombia thelandscape is scarred by 600 yearsof conflict and the Peace
Community has been subject toattacks from leftist guerilla fightersand right-wing paramilitary groups.
Founded in 1997 against
a backdrop of violence andintimidation, a group of 2,100
farmers pledged a process ofpeaceful resistance and a life ofnon-violence. As a result, the state
has withdrawn support, healthcare,mains electricity, schools andprotection. In total the community
has lost 261 members to thoseseeking control of their land.
The Peace Community lives
and works in a small rural town in
the northwest of Colombia, near
the Gulf of Urabá. Each day thefarmers wake before the sun rises
to begin harvesting their cocoa.
The seedlings are grown in a
special form of compost, made by
the community, and are planted in
the fields. Within two years cocoa
pods will grow from the trees where
they ripen, and those that lookhealthy are collected and opened
using a machete. The beans arethen scooped out by hand andplaced into buckets, bagged andtaken by horseback to secure areasin the community to be fermented.
Those that fail to meet the required
standard are used as compost toenrich the soil.
“We were really impressedby their story,” explains Gabbi.
“They want to be self sufficientand provide for their families, and30 | Quality World | September 2015

they don’t get any government
support. They have historicallystruggled to access the main market
in Colombia because they’ve had
issues where consignments sent tomarket have been waylaid or haverun into trouble.”
However, choosing to work in
the developing world has not beeneasy. “Our process is about doing
everything to ensure transparency
but also realising there’s still achance that somewhere along theline things might go wrong. That
something will come to light that
isn’t as you had hoped it would be.
“Our long-term vision for cocoa
is to have complete traceability.
We want all of our cocoa to comedirectly from small communities,
like the Peace Community. It’s anenduring process for us and one
with a number of challenges.”

Ethical networks

A combination of business acumen
and sensitivity to the plight of thecommunity was needed to createa supply chain matching Lush’s
aspirations for ethical business.
Gabbi worked with the community
to ensure the processes used togrow and harvest the cocoa beans
were up to scratch. “When you’reworking with people who aren’t
used to exporting, you have to build
expertise and a support network,”
she explains. “The best way to do
this is through knowledge sharing.”
The buyers at Lush neverassume a process is working.
Wherever possible they try to visit
the communities growing the raw
materials and following the material
across the supply chain is integral.
“It’s about clear, collaborativeplanning and understanding
expectations, as well as monitoring
development through reports, visits
where feasible, videos and photos –Watch itSee how Lush is continuously improving its
cocoa supply chain in our exclusive video:

thecqi.org/lushImage: The iconic
post-consumer
recycled,
UK-manufactured
black pots

“The wordsustainablefundamentallymeans to keep
things as theyare now. The
next step islearning how
to make ourprocesses
regenerative”

a lot of communication is involved
and feedback is really importantfor creating a transparent system.
“At one point there were massive
quality issues with the cocoa – welost quite a few tonnes of beans tomould because they weren’t driedor shipped correctly.”
Gabbi travelled to other cocoa
communities in the developingworld to improve her knowledgeof the quality control processes
for this raw material. She thenused this knowledge to support
the Peace Community, sharing theinformation she had gathered.
“I shared the checklists and madesure we had a clearer way of testing
the beans. We also supported thecommunity by funding a dry house,and drying and storage facilities.
Then we worked with the freightcompanies and introduced hermetic
bags – usually used to store coffee –which let moisture out but not in.
“We gave the community
equipment that improved the way
they measure moisture. Once
farmers learned these skills they
were able to conduct training with
their families and the communities,
which is now an available source ofincome for them. The communities
needed some financial support tostart off with but we are realising
the technical expertise we can bring,both from within Lush and drawing
on the knowledge of our global
network of partners, is invaluable.
We are helping new partners todevelop experience, technicalexpertise and share knowledge
about quality so they can improve
processes themselves.”

Packaged with care

Once the cocoa beans have been
harvested, fermented and dried
they are sent to a small processorin Holland, where hundredsof pounds of cocoa butter arecreated. The resulting cocoa
powder is either used by Lushor bought by other companies,
adding a new dimension to Lush’sportfolio. The cocoa butter is thenshipped to the factory in Poole
where it is used as a key ingredientfor some of the company’s mostpopular products. Each productleaves manufacturing for a
Lush store within 21 days of its
creation to abide by the company’s
freshness policy.
Lush had finally achieved its
aspiration of creating a supply
chain using fully traceable cocoa– an aim that had previously beenviewed as impossible by industry
experts. However, the company’s
ethical practices do not end
there. The black packaging usedfor its products has become iconic
because of its simple design andenvironmentally friendly nature
post-production.
“Packaging has always beena real challenge for us,” explains
Gabbi. “We started using thepost-consumer recycled,
UK-manufactured black pots morethan five years ago and, whereverfeasible, we will only work with
suppliers that are willing to use
post-consumer recycled materials.
Often it’s a challenge to convince
potential suppliers that this form of
packing can be created.”
To make things even moredifficult the Lush team wasadamant it would use one single,
recyclable material for its pots, socustomers could return the empty
pots to the closed loop-recycling
programme evident in all shops.
“When we created our solid
lipsticks we found a company
that had the correct tooling but
they had tried post-consumer
recycled resin before and found theprocess technically complicatedand inconsistent.” Eventually thecompany agreed to run a small
trial. “It was an amazing moment
when we got the phone call to
say it worked and they would be
happy to use our post-consumer
recycled polypropylene (PP) tocreate the packaging,” Gabbi
explains emphatically. “They evenasked us about our source for thematerial because they felt it could
be valuable to offer as an option
for other customers. It was anincredible victory for us.”

After sustainability

The Lush vision for truly green
manufacturing is focused on
promoting its ethical practices
externally with new suppliers andhoning its own green techniques
internally. “We’re never satisfied,”says Gabbi. “It’s a constantly
evolving process. We are always
taking steps towards our goals andas soon as we’ve achieved one thing
we uncover more technologies andopportunities. We are continually
striving to stay ahead.”
For the buyers at Lushsustainability is no longer theultimate goal. “The word‘sustainable’ fundamentally means
to keep things as they are now andoften that’s not good enough,” says
Gabbi. “The next step is learning
how to make our processes
regenerative. It’s a massive task andthe processes are ever-evolving
because what appears to beregenerative today you could
push even further tomorrow. Thecapacity and the possibilities keepgrowing.” Lush feel its green
technology and ethical processes
are not extraordinary, with a little
creative thinking this innovative
business model can become anindustry standard.

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