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NEW LEAF: Fricke picks cloves
with an Indonesian farmer, who totes his chickens
in baskets to protect them from predators.
Courtesy ForesTrade
|
you can taste his passion: the
sweetness of cinnamon, the fire of ginger, the earthiness of
coffee, the soft bite of white
pepper.
Slogging through mud in the Guatemalan highlands,
Thomas Fricke eyes a perfect place to grow organic vanilla.
It
is a once-vital tropical forest, now denuded by slash-and-burn
farming but untouched by synthetic chemicals. His plan:
introduce the lucrative and sustainable crop to the local
Maya, who can revitalize the habitat by planting trees
to support and shade the climbing vanilla plant.
Fricke is president of ForesTrade,
importing organic spices, coffees and essential oils
through joint ventures with independent growers. He
started the company eight years ago with his wife, Sylvia
Blanchet, who serves as vice president.
From patchouli leaves harvested by the Mentawai
of Indonesia, who wear flowers in their hair to appease
the plant spirits,
to the vanilla tended by former Guatemalan guerrillas,
each product reflects a strategy based on environmental
sustainability, cultural respect and social responsibility.
That mix drew a Business Award for Sustainable Development
Partnerships at the 2002 U.N. World Summit, where ForesTrade
was the only U.S. firm to receive the honor.
The company,
based in Brattleboro, Vt., has approximately 70,000 growers
in Indonesia, Guatemala and Grenada. With
more than 100 wholesale buyers, including Ben and Jerry’s,
Peet’s Coffee and Tazo Tea, sales have been growing
by more than 30 percent a year, exceeding $9 million in
2003, Fricke says.
While demand for organic fruits and
vegetables has skyrocketed, few importers sell certified
organic spices. “We’re
a large fish in a small pond,” Fricke says. “I
hope to be an inspiration to other companies, to show that
organic works.”
The son of German Jewish refugees
from East Berlin who immigrated to California when
he was 8, Fricke crafted
his own major in urban design and architecture and
lived at Jordan House, a hotbed of campus activism at the
time.
When housemates went on to become doctors and lawyers,
he stayed with the issues that stirred him in the ’70s:
sustainable development and rainforest preservation. At
a 20th-anniversary celebration of the former co-op, friends
voted him “most unchanged.”
After graduating,
he consulted for the World Bank, directed Harvard’s
Cultural Survival Southeast Asia program and advised the
World Wildlife Fund in Sumatra. Frustrated
with the “short-term nature and sustainability problems” of
nonprofit efforts in Sumatra, he decided to approach preservation
from the business side.
An international spice trader has
to be part Marco Polo, part Indiana Jones and part Dale
Carnegie, Fricke says. “You
must chart courses through remote regions, constantly practice
personal diplomacy and dodge dangers real and imaginary.
I relish riding the waves in a rickety fishing boat in
search of sustainably harvested cloves.” For the
purveyor of flavors, life is seldom bland. |
