Unilever helps promote sustainable tea practice

Representatives from Unilever, the Dutch Embassy, MARD, IDH and Rainforest Alliance at the launch of the project

The project promoting the cultivation of sustainable tea was launched in Hanoi in mid-January by global consumer goods manufacturer Unilever, the Sustainable Trade Initiative IDH and US-based Rainforest Alliance.

The joint project is part of a public private partnership, the Vietnam Tea Initiative, between Unilever and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

The two and a half year project intends to provide definitive improvements to 30 tea processing plants and over 19,000 smallholders.

The project is funded by Unilever and the IDH with the Rainforest Alliance (RA) acting as implementing partner.

The main focus for the project is to accelerate the transformation of the country’s tea sector through a close partnership with tea industry stakeholders, and support tea processors and their suppliers to implement social and environmental improvements in preparation for them to achieve Rainforest Alliance certification, allowing access to higher value tea export markets. 

The project intends to ensure that over 19,000 tea smallholders and 30 processors achieve Rainforest Alliance Certified status through training and technical support; enabling 30,000-35,000 metric tonnes of Vietnamese tea to access the international market through Unilever’s supply chain by December 2015. The project will also identify gaps in compliance with global agrochemical regulations and integrate this into training with the goal of ensuring the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN) compliance and reducing overall testing frequency. 

The project is also dedicated to training 300 local farmers by 2015 in SAN standards that leads to  Rainforest Alliance certification and working on increasing productivity and improving agrochemical management in smallholder tea farms.

The Vietnam Tea Initiative was established by the World Economic Forum Task Force on Sustainable Agriculture Development in Ho Chi Minh City. Vietnam’s Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and leading businesses were committed to accelerating sustainable agricultural growth in Vietnam through public-private partnership.

Unilever proposed the Vietnam Tea Initiative to the Vietnamese government and has volunteered to take the lead, in collaboration with MARD, on the project.

The initiative aims to achieve improved quality and overall competitiveness of Vietnamese tea and increase the export of black tea to Unilever - the world’s largest tea industry player.

Unilever has more than tripled its procurement of black tea from Vietnam within the first two years of the initiative’s implementation.

The joint project is a critical step to further the success of the initiative, aiming to integrate smallholders into quality and sustainable tea supply chains in Vietnam.

In 2013, more than 34 per cent of tea from Vietnam for Unilever’s brands was from sustainable sources. The multinational has targeted sourcing 100 per cent of its agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020.

The work on the Rainforest Alliance programme started in Vietnam in 2009 with support from Unilever. Four tea plantations had been certified as ‘Sustainable Estates’ by the Rainforest Alliance (RA) by the end of 2013.

RA certification is built on three pillars of sustainability: environmental protection, social equity and economic viability. No single pillar can support long-term success exclusively.

More than 960,000 farms, ranging from small holdings to large estates, have now gained Rainforest Alliance certification globally.

Tea has been cultivated for more than 3,000 years in Vietnam and it is an important part of local culture and a key export commodity.

Vietnam is the fifth largest tea producer worldwide but suffers from low prices and quality compared to rival countries. Vietnamese producers thereby must work at improving quality and lift the overall quality for all types of tea products.

Being the world’s largest player in tea industry, Unilever strongly commits to expand its tea supply base in Vietnam and to further provide its support to Vietnamese tea producers, especially in sustainability, quality and safe agrochemical use, helping to contribute to the development of the small holders tea industry in Vietnam.