How to Build Fair and Sustainable Supply Chains for Agricultural Products

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Join this session of the Gerhart Center Webinar Series featuring Gero Leson, vice president of special operations at Dr. Bronner’s.

Dr. Bronner’s is the bestselling brand of natural soaps in the United States. Founded in 1948, the company is family owned and pursues a philanthropic/activist agenda. Since 2005, Dr. Bronner’s has built a supply chain from organic and fair trade ingredients. 

This talk will focus on the company, its history and the financial rules that facilitate its agenda. It introduces several organic/fair trade and regenerative smallholder projects, their opportunities and challenges. It suggests actions to other companies that may bring them closer to their suppliers of agricultural ingredients, thus overcoming the economic and cultural divide between the Global South and North.

About the speaker:

Gero Leson is the vice president of special operations at Dr. Bronner’s, a bestselling brand of natural soaps in the United States. Since 2005, he has managed Dr. Bronner’s shift to sourcing its main ingredients — coconut, palm, olive and mint oil — from organic and fair trade projects. His team has built projects with up to 2,500 smallholders, helped build local management teams, and supports the projects with their diversification, shift to increasingly regenerative agriculture and sales of a growing range of regenerative products.
 

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