Native Vanilla transforming the lives of farmers

After decades working for big business, Dan Edmiston decided to return to his roots - and now he is helping to transform the lives of vanilla farmers in the Pacific.
From a childhood adventure Dan’s company is now helping villages provide schools for their children, clean water and medical aid postsFrom a childhood adventure Dan’s company is now helping villages provide schools for their children, clean water and medical aid posts
From a childhood adventure Dan’s company is now helping villages provide schools for their children, clean water and medical aid posts

Dan learned about Papua New Guinea as a child, moving there with his parents in 1981 to a remote village on the Karawari River and the family soon found themselves adopted into the local clans.

When he returned in 2014, after 20 years owning and running large corporate businesses, he found life had greatly changed, with a lack of adequate education, difficult access to water and little or no medical services.

Villagers had begun to grow cash crops like vanilla, but struggled to find a fair price for their product, with unreliable buyers and no guarantee on price. And when his village brother asked him for help, Dan found himself starting on a journey that would lead to him transforming the lives of his clan and others like them.

To bring the benefits back to the village Dan realised he needed to create his own retail brandTo bring the benefits back to the village Dan realised he needed to create his own retail brand
To bring the benefits back to the village Dan realised he needed to create his own retail brand

“I couldn’t shake the thought that I had been given a rare chance to make a direct change,” he said. “I understood the culture, the people and could speak the language – I also understood the Western business world. I quickly decided to take the jump. I sold my successful Fintech company and began the vanilla journey.”

Having researched everything he could, reading the labels on vanilla products, looking into the existing sources of vanilla, supply routes and the complications of vanilla regulations, Dan realised that the existing market was overly complex and made little financial sense for the farmers.

“To bring the benefits back to the village, I realised we needed our own retail brand,” he said. “These were the seeds of Native Vanilla.”

From those simple beginnings Dan has managed to create a company that provides high-quality vanilla products around the world, from pure vanilla extract to vanilla beans, and even vanilla powder, bringing more than just a fair price to local farmers.

Native Vanilla has enabled the transformation of communities in Papua New Guinea, partnering with farming villages to implement projects that help the health and welfare of the local people. The company ensures they can deliver organically farmed, sustainably sourced top-quality vanilla to homes across the globe, all of it using eco-friendly, biodegradable packaging.

“Farmers face many challenges and often don’t have the resources or support to tackle these,” Dan said. “At Native Vanilla, we are committed to sharing profits with farmers. We provide mobile buying hubs that reduce farmer’s transport costs. We do training for sustainable agriculture programs that educate and advocate the use of organic matter of composting, non-use of pesticides and the use of polyculture. We provide small-business training for micro-farmers, as well as community project funding.

“We are a company that is passionate about people.”

From a childhood adventure Dan’s company is now helping villages provide schools for their children, clean water and medical aid posts - and by buying a fair trade vanilla product, customers can help transform lives as well.

To find out more about the company and their products, and to get involved with making a real difference, visit Native Vanilla.

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