Most would probably say that business and ethics just don't mix, but we like to think a little differently. At Medesa we don't only think business and ethics should mix, we feel it's an absolute must . Thankfully, our suppliers are completely like minded and we hope that you, our valued customers, are too.

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There are three main points that we are really focused on and we have set them out for you below:

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ANIMAL TESTING

No Product we stock has been tested on animals.  However, it is virtually impossible for any company to claim that all the basic ingredients that go in to a product have never* been tested on animals, it is simply impossible to make such a claim.
What we can state however is that, as far as possible, our suppliers use natural, pure ingredients, hold similar principles to ourselves, and endeavour to produce entirely cruelty free product.
* Although it is most likely accurate to say that no basic ingredient has been tested on animals since 1967

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CHILD LABOUR

Our suppliers go above and beyond when it comes to ascertaining if a company is using children as cheap labour. The deliberate and systematic use of child labour is unnecessary and, in our opinion, an act of pure greed.  However (and this is a tricky “however”) the reality is that culturally, in small family businesses, children are a part of those businesses.
In India for example, a lot of the components for craft work are produced by out-workers in the villages. There are over a million villages in India relying on farming and craft work as a means of income. A village will hand down particular craft skills from generation to generation and rely on this for extra income. Most villages still don’t have electricity or running water but, most children will attend a morning school and in the afternoons they will help in what is essentially the family business.

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Our suppliers regularly travel to India and China in search of new and exciting product lines. On a trip to Calcutta they visited an outlying village and returned with this wonderful story:

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“The truth is that the villages of India are a massive collective cottage industry. It is superbly organised with agents representing villages or groups and ferrying materials in and finished goods back. Each area of the country has its own special skills, handed down through the generations. What do they make? That ethnic skirt you are wearing, the shirt, jute bag, those wooden toys and the beads in your fashion jewellery - all made in the villages of India. Factories exist of course, but often the overspill work finds its way to the villages. This discovery disturbed us. I worried that exploitation might be endemic in this cottage industry culture so I was determined to go and see for myself.

We stopped the car at a small shack like shop and the second we alighted from our 4x4 dozens of small children came running, but surprisingly they didn’t beg or tug at us (like in the city) they just came to smile and stare unabashed at the rare white faces, so we stared back and smiled. My man in Calcutta (to whom this was also an adventure) asked the guy in the shack if it would be OK to visit the village, a huge brilliant white smile provided the affirmative answer so we trouped off down a neat, well-maintained brick path like pied pipers of Hamlin with a crowd of kids laughing and skipping behind us. Shortly we came to the village, on each side of the path at intervals lay inward looking compounds made up of mud-brick buildings around an inner courtyard where the families worked, ate and, in the heat of summer, slept. We asked if it was OK to enter one - of course it was - and all the kids crushed in after us. Immediately we found the fabled cottage industry in full swing, this village specialised in creating lavish sequinned saris as worn by the socialite urban ladies. There, stretched between bamboo poles, was the current creation – a real family business with every generation involved, including dare I say, children. They tell me that many craft skills are jealously guarded and passed unwritten down the generations.

But this was not a rat infested slum buzzing with mosquitoes, it was devoid of any modern amenity including electricity, but everywhere was neat and tidy. The atmosphere was industrious with everyone smiling. We discovered that the children attended a morning school a mile or so back up the road but what struck me most was that absolutely everyone had Hollywood smiles – perfect sets of gleaming white teeth.

This is only one village in a million, although we did see other fishing villages in the Sunderbans that were similar, but it’s certainly not the third world poverty I half expected. If anything, the life style we saw here seemed to be a peaceful kind of utopia. The one thing that everyone tells you about village people is that they are good people, they are honest people and they are hard working people.”

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FAIR TRADE

The way it works in India is that goods for export are priced higher than goods for domestic sale - which means that exporting companies are able to provide better conditions and pay for their staff, and a better quality product.  
We are pleased to say that our suppliers work within this system and everyone involved gets to see the benefits.  This is our version of Fair Trade.

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