Driving progress for people
A forest stays standing because the households around it can afford to leave it standing. That is the entire theory, and most of the work is making the arithmetic hold.
A price agreed before the season, not after it
A tapper who knows in March what benzoin will fetch in August can decide whether to tap, how many trees to work and whether to send a child to school. A tapper who finds out at harvest can only accept what is offered. We post a floor price at each station before the season opens and buy at or above it, including in the years the market falls below.
- Floor price posted before each tapping season
- Paid at the station, in full, on the day
- No deduction for grading carried out after purchase
What happens when the crop does not come
Benzoin fails sometimes — weather, disease, a tapping cycle that needs a rest. The households do not stop needing income when it does. Advances against the following season, carried without interest, are the oldest instrument in this business and the one written into the 1840s ledger. We still use it, and it is the main reason families stay in the trade across generations rather than selling the land.
- Interest-free advances against the following season
- Registered households prioritised when volume is short
- Rest cycles supported rather than penalised
The forest was never the difficult part. Keeping it worth somebody’s while to look after it is the difficult part.
Tapping well is a taught skill, and it is worth teaching
A badly scored tree yields less and dies sooner. Station staff run tapping and grading sessions each year before the season, and the households who attend consistently produce a higher first-grade share — which they are then paid for. It is the rare programme where doing the right thing and being paid more are the same action.
- Pre-season tapping and grading sessions at every station
- First-grade share paid at a premium
- Younger tappers trained alongside the household head
How the same discipline shows up in the supply chain.
Responsible sourcing