GEPA - The Fair Trade Company

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
GEPA (short form)

logo
legal form GmbH
founding May 14, 1975
Seat Wuppertal , Germany
management Matthias Kroth, Peter Schaumberger (both managing directors)
Number of employees 170 (as of December 31, 2018)
sales EUR 73.75 million (2018)
Branch Wholesale and retail trade ,
fair trade
Website www.gepa.de

GEPA - The Fair Trade Company is the largest European importer of fair trade food and handicraft products from the southern countries of the world. The registered with the Commercial Register Company The company is Ge society to promote Pa rtnerschaft with the Third World mbH . Until February 2007 the name of the GmbH was gepa Fair Handelshaus .

Product range

GEPA products alongside other Transfair items

Food

The company offers the following foods in the world shop and in many supermarkets and health food stores :

Craft products

The products from the non-food sector are almost exclusively offered in world shops:

Principles and goals

With fair trade, the company intends to improve the living conditions of people who are disadvantaged due to regional and national economic and social structures in their country and the global economy . For GEPA, fair trade relationships include:

  • Payment of fair prices
  • Pre-financing on request by the producers (so that, for example, seeds can be bought)
  • Long-term trading relationships
  • Advice on product development and export processing
  • Promotion of organic farming

With the support of GEPA and other organizations, the producers achieved the following goals:

  • Improved electricity and water supplies
  • Better health care
  • Reduction of child labor
  • Establishment of schools and educational institutions
  • Improvement of product quality (organic cultivation)
  • The producers have a say
  • Regular working hours, with breaks
  • More job opportunities

GEPA tries to offer the highest possible proportion of fairly traded products. As of August 2013, of the 371 GEPA food products contained:

  • 00 - < 100% fair trade: 268 products
  • 75 - <100% fair trade content: 051 products
  • 50 - < 075% fair trade content: 034 products
  • 25 - < 050% fair trade content: 016 products
  • 00 - < 025% fair trade share: 002 products.

77% of the food is grown in organic agriculture (as of October 2015).

In addition, the GEPA wants to change the buying behavior of consumers in industrialized countries and achieve structural changes in the world economy through lobbying .

In contrast to purely commercially oriented companies, GEPA would like to give customers an insight into how their prices are made and strives for transparency. A sample calculation for chocolate is available on the website.

history

The beginnings (1959 to 1980)

Fair trade began in the Netherlands in 1959 : the Steun voor Onderontwikkelde Streken (SOS) foundation was established. In 1967 SOS began trading products from developing countries. In April 1969, the first world shop opened in the Dutch town of Breukelen . Subsidiaries were founded in Germany , Austria and Switzerland in the early 1970s . In 1973 the world's first fair trade coffee was sold in the Netherlands. The first third world stores were also opened in Germany. In 1973, the Association for Trade with the Third World , the forerunner of the GEPA , was founded as a German subsidiary . In 1975, the Third World Shops Working Group called AG3WL was launched in Frankfurt / Main : At that time there were ten world shops in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 1978 the opening event for the “ Jute instead of plastic ” campaign took place in Hamburg . The number of world shops had risen to 100. At the end of the 1970s, the subsidiary organizations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland became independent. In 1980 the fair trade organization in the Netherlands was renamed SOS Wereldhandel .

1980s: Growing support

In 1983 there were around 2,500 action groups, in 1986 there were 4,000 action groups; 400 world shops sold fair trade products nationwide. In 1988 the Max Havelaar seal of approval for fair trade was introduced in the Netherlands . In order to appeal to new groups of buyers and, above all, to offer trading partners more sales opportunities for their products, gepa broke new ground in sales from 1989 onwards. In addition to the “classic” sales areas of world shops and action groups, it is increasingly expanding sales to organic and natural food stores , food retailers , bulk consumers and mail order. The most important and largest importer had thus committed to the plurality of distribution channels beyond the narrow framework of alternative trade. The development of the TransFair seal , which is actively supported by gepa, is also part of the strategy for expanding trade. In 1989 the International Federation for Alternative Trade (IFAT) was founded as a world association of alternative import organizations, to which around 100 fair trade organizations belonged in 1998, including in Germany Third World Partner Ravensburg (today: WeltPartner eG ), El Puente , gepa and TEAM . In 1990 the European Fair Trade Association (EFTA) was founded as an amalgamation of eleven alternative import organizations.

The beginnings in retail

In 1989, the Aktion Arme Welt Tübingen started selling GEPA-AHA coffee as a pilot project for coffee in normal trade in three Tübingen branches of the Gottlieb Handelsgesellschaft . In the course of opening up to food retailing , from May 1990 onwards, AHA coffee from gepa was sold in 34 branches of Gottlieb trading company.

In order to appeal to new groups of buyers and, above all, to offer trading partners more sales opportunities for their products, new paths were pursued in sales from around 1989 . In addition to the "classic" sales areas of world shops and action groups, it increasingly expanded sales to include natural food and organic stores , food retailers, bulk consumers and mail order . The development of the TransFair seal (now FAIRTRADE) is also part of the strategy for expanding trade.

On October 7, 1992 the gepa became the first licensee of TransFair . The first TransFair-sealed coffee was sold in the fall of 1992.

The spread of coffee and new partners

On January 8, 1993, the first coffee specifically intended for retail was roasted. New major customers were acquired from January to March: Henkel , the Bundestag restaurant, Allianz , the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament , the Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) and the town halls of Menden and Langenfeld. Also in March, the number of TransFair member organizations (shareholders) rose to 26, with Deutsche Welthungerhilfe e. V., the office for community service (today: House of Church Services ) of the Evangelical Lutheran. Landeskirche Hannover , the EDCS - Westdeutscher Förderkreis e. V. (later renamed Oikocredit ) as well as the Federal Association of the Catholic Rural Youth Movement (KLJB). On May 12, 1993 new criteria for trade relations were introduced.

The restructuring

Logo until February 2007

For the BIOFACH trade fair in February 2007, the company made a design change. The company logo , the packaging and the advertising presence are changed. The aim is to appeal to young people in particular and to familiarize them with fair trade. Instead of the lowercase letters gepa , the new logo consists of the uppercase letters GEPA in conjunction with the claim THE FAIR TRADE COMPANY .

In May 2016 it became known that the non-governmental organization Oxfam decided to discontinue the Gepa products from its around 50 stores nationwide for business policy reasons. The sale of donated clothes and books brings high profit margins , whereas the sale of fair trade products only brings 20 to 30 percent. The GEPA commented that this was not a major turning point, as only 1.5 percent of sales in the world shops sector in 2015 were achieved through Oxfam.

Key figures

Sales figures (up to 2015: financial year from April to March of the coming year, from 2016: financial year = calendar year):

Fiscal year Sales (in € million) Compared to the previous year
1997/1998 28.53 -
1999/2000 29.7 + 4%
2000/2001 31.19 + 4%
2001/2002 33.0 + 8%
2002/2003 35.78 + 7%
2003/2004 36.80 + 3%
2004/2005 39.66 + 7.7%
2005/2006 44.97 + 13.4%
2006/2007 49.00 + 9%
2007/2008 52.00 + 6.1%
2009/2010 54.4 + 4.6%
2010/2011 58.4 + 7.4%
2011/2012 61.5 + 5.3%
2012/2013 61.2 - 0.5%
2013/2014 63.7 + 4.1%
2014/2015 67.9 + 6.6%
2016 74.0 + 7.2%
2017 72.4 - 1.9%

Shareholder

Sales structure

11 regional fair trade centers in Germany supply around 800 world shops and around 6,000 action groups with fair trade food and handicraft products. Numerous supermarkets and food retailers have the products in their range. Company canteens, student unions , conference centers, etc. Ä. are supplied by the out-of-home service (AHS). There is also an online shop .

The regional fair trade centers (RFZ) are, with the exception of the RFZ Wuppertal, in independent sponsorship.

Regional fair trade center (own sponsorship)

The former GEPA building in Wuppertal (until 2007)
The new GEPA location in Wuppertal (from 2007)

GEPA only operates its own RFZ for the West region in Wuppertal .

Independent regional fair trade centers

Former RFZ in GEPA's own sponsorship

  • South ( Leonberg ), was closed at the end of 2011
  • Ost ( Berlin ), was closed at the end of 2011
  • Mitte ( Alzenau ) was closed at the end of October 2012

Memberships and cooperations

GEPA is a member of the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO) and the European Fair Trade Association (EFTA). She is also a registered FLO importer and a licensee at TransFair and Naturland . As a member of the Forum Fairer Handel (FFH), GEPA participates in the organization of the Fair Week .

GEPA has been a partner of the NaSch Community, the network for sustainable student companies, since 2015. With its support, GEPA wants to sensitize schoolchildren to questions of sustainability and to provide information and advice on fair trade issues.

Awards

  • 2009: Wuppertal Business Prize , award in the “Company 2009” category.
  • 2009: German Sustainability Award , category “Germany's most sustainable purchasing”, placement among the best three candidates.
  • 2010: German Sustainability Award, category “Germany's most sustainable future strategies for small and medium-sized companies”, placement among the best three candidates.
  • 2011: German Sustainability Award, category “Germany's most sustainable brands”, placement among the best three candidates.
  • 2013: Gold Medal of the Consumer Initiative e. V. for "Sustainability Communication in Retail 2013". For the awarding of the award, it was decisive that GEPA has a high degree of credibility and transparency and that it is able to communicate its activities very well.
  • 2014: German Sustainability Award, winner in the category “Germany's Most Sustainable Brands” and placement among the best three candidates in the category “Germany's Most Sustainable Small Businesses 2014”.
  • 2015: Gold medal for sustainable individual companies of the Consumer Initiative e. V.
  • 2017: as one of five companies nominated for the Federal Government's CSR Award in the special award category "Responsible Supply Chain Management"

Special features of the packaging

Each new sales packaging has a photo with a quote from a trading partner in the third world who manufactures the product in question. The logo consists of a spiral with a G in the center .

Unlike other brands, GEPA chocolate is not wrapped in aluminum foil , as aluminum is produced in an environmentally harmful way and can endanger health. The white aroma protection film of the GEPA chocolate consists of up to 94% renewable raw materials, namely cellulose . It prevents foreign substances from the outer packaging from getting into the chocolate. Their use is therefore in the interests of consumers and the environment.

See also

Web links

Commons : GEPA - The Fair Trade Company  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ GEPA: Figures - Data - Facts 2018 (pdf)
  2. ↑ GEPA criteria for fair trade , accessed on December 4, 2016.
  3. ↑ a b c Figures - Data - Facts. Fiscal year 2014/15 , accessed on December 4, 2016.
  4. ↑ Communication on the fair trade content of GEPA products, status: August 2013 , accessed on December 6, 2016.
  5. ↑ Is a GEPA product always organic? , accessed December 4, 2016.
  6. ↑ Sample calculation for chocolate whole milk Pur 37 (PDF), accessed on December 6, 2016.
  7. ↑ Michael von Hauff, Katja Claus: Fair Trade. A concept of sustainable trade. , UVK Verlagsgesellschaft mbh; Konstanz and Munich 2012, p. 87.
  8. ^ Markus Raschke: Fair trade. Commitment to a just global economy. , Matthias Grünewald Verlag Ostfildern, 2009, p. 97.
  9. ^ Markus Raschke: Fair trade. Commitment to a just global economy. , Matthias Grünewald Verlag Ostfildern, 2009, p. 98.
  10. ^ Markus Raschke: Fair trade. Commitment to a just global economy. , Matthias Grünewald Verlag Ostfildern, 2009, pp. 101/102.
  11. ↑ Setback for fair dealers: Oxfam wants to list Gepa , taz of May 9, 2016, accessed May 9, 2016
  12. ^ Annual report of GEPA The Fair Trade Company, May 2015 , from: gepa.de.
  13. ↑ Communication on the partnership between GEPA and NaSch-Community , accessed on December 4, 2016.
  14. ^ Announcement on the award ceremony , accessed on October 22, 2015.
  15. ↑ Report from the award ceremony of the German Sustainability Award 2014 ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed November 29, 2014.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.nachhaltigkeitspreis.de
  16. ↑ 2014 nomination list for the German Sustainability Award , accessed on November 9, 2014.
  17. ^ Announcement on the award ceremony , September 10, 2015, accessed on October 22, 2015.
  18. ↑ List of nominees for the CSR Prize of the Federal Government 2017 , accessed on January 14, 2020
  19. ↑ Communication on the inner packaging of GEPA chocolate , accessed on November 29, 2014.


Coordinates: 51 ° 14 ′ 53 ″  N , 7 ° 4 ′ 23 ″  E