In 2015, Bon Appétit became the first food service company to commit to sourcing 100% Fair Trade Certified tea in our cafés. We partnered with Oakland, CA based Numi Tea to make this commitment a reality.
Numi is an example of a company that bundles Fair Trade and other certifications with their own proprietary programs in a way that creates positive impacts that ripple through supply chains and spur systemic change in the food system.
Since its founding in 1999, Numi has been on a mission to sell 100% Fair Trade Certified tea and more. They’ve forged deep and lasting connections with the agricultural communities they work with around the world, giving back to workers critical to their company’s success. One example of this commitment is Numi’s H2OPE program, which funds the installation of wells that ensure communities have access to clean and safe drinking water. Numi also chooses to go above and beyond Fair Trade’s labor provisions, adhering to Verified Fair Labor, a set of labor standards that Numi created in partnership with Scientific Certification Systems, a independent third-party organization that helps companies set labor and sustainability standards. In addition to creating its own standards, Numi is a Certified B Corp and uses only USDA Certified Organic and Non-GMO Project verified Ingredients in their teas. This combination of certifications and programs yields uniquely powerful results:
- 14,370 people were positively impacted by Fair Trade Certified and Verified Fair Labor program, or received support from the Together for H2OPE program.
- 85% of Numi’s ingredients were able to be traced to the farm where they were grown.
- Numi also displaced 14.3 metric tons of virgin plastic through its use of compostable tea bag wrappers