5x5x5 Growth Awards: Construction - Partners trade in more than just organic coffee, The

Vermont Business Magazine, Sep 01, 2004 by Barna, Ed

Brattleboro-based ForesTrade's first collaborative effort might be said to have been the 1976 meeting of founders Sylvia Blanchet and Thomas Fricke at a California conference on "Bio-Intensive Agriculture and the Third World." The company that now links more than 6,000 farmers in Guatemala and Indonesia with processors in those countries, Europe and the United States, and is seeking similar producer relationships in India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar and Grenada, is the fruit of more than a quarter century of experience.

It was by no means clear in 1980, when Fricke co-authored a discussion paper on 'Ecologically-Oriented Agriculture" for the World Bank Office of Science and Technology, that traditional and alternative agricultural models could make both economic and ecological sense.

On the way to proving that, he and Blanchet have worked as staff members or consultants with international agencies, nongovernmental environmental and development organizations, foundations and businesses, traveling through Asia, Africa and Latin America and becoming familiar with many innovative agricultural systems and effective business net works. Work on organic farms in this country, and teaching at both the community and university levels, helped synthesize their ideas, at a time when the organic movement was surging.

It was the marketplace that Fricke and Blanchet found to be missing in the well-intentioned efforts of many people similarly concerned about rainforest conservation, biodiversity, - and non-chemical farming. Fricke had seen some of the possibilities after joining the staff of Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Cultural Survival Enterprises in the early 1990's - a non-profit trading group that helped create hundreds of food and personal products with companies like Ben & Jerry's Homemade, The Body Shop, and The Nature Company. "Rainforest products marketing" clearly had great potential.

The company's old Web site - a new one more oriented toward business relationships and online execution is in the works - described the next chapter: "By the mid-1990's, ForesTrade's founders realized from personal experience that most donor-financed projects were not effective or sustainable in the long term," lacking recognition of "market realities and business fundamentals." In 1995 they set up ForesTrade, Inc as a for-profit enterprise.

Three years later, the Wall Street journal was remarking how the rebels of the finally ended Guatemalan civil war were becoming "enviro-capitalists" with ForesTrade's help. What the company had done in Indonesia with spices, essential oils and coffee happening again, and in those areas the farmers weren't cutting and burning the forests.

Not only the trend toward buying organic and supporting the environment, but also a surge of interest in ethnic (often highly spice) foods, has been propelling sales. Now, Fricke said, the company has reached "a critical mass" for taking another big step forward, with annual sales soon to reach $10 million.

In the works are a major refinancing, restructuring to reflect a more sophisticated market, and a greater emphasis on their own brand as well as being a behind- the-scene supplier for betterknown names.

"I like to say we work with several thousand suppliers, but several million consumers," Fricke said. "We can't do it all by ourselves." Vim