About
Shaelee Evans has a lot of grand ideas for Goodness Tea Farm. As we strolled through the tea plant dotted forest, she summarized it perfectly. “I want to show that business can be a force for good, not just for profit.”
One way she accomplishes this goal: give away a portion of the farm’s revenue.
“We wouldn’t have chocolate without slavery, so I’ve added reparations into the Cost of Goods Sold for my chocolate bars. Having a component based approach to costing, we can see what it actually takes to make things and have a capacity to give. Data driven decision making is the only way to have a responsible and long-lasting system.”
Her financial costs are higher than her large-scale competitors but keeping close tabs on everything that goes into the production has allowed Shaelee to run a profitable farm while balancing societal benefits and environmental benefits.
The commitment to high quality ingredients and ethical sourcing practices add complexity to the ingredients costs. Since Goodness Tea farms grows what they can, supplements their harvest by sourcing from local farmers, and purchases organic (and fairtrade if applicable) for what can’t grow on the Peninsula, the ingredient costs are elevated and variable.
Large-scale chocolate production relies heavily on exploitative labor practices and pollution both domestically and abroad. Goodness Tea, however, pays all their employees a livable wage which needs to be reflected in the price. Instead of cutting costs with plastic wrappers, which can stick around for 50 years, all of their chocolate comes in more expensive compostable material.
Shaelee hasn’t always had such a dedication to accurate cost tracking.
“That’s why the farm almost died in the beginning! I was working too hard to support the prices I felt were right instead of looking at what it actually cost. [Calculating the costs] really illuminated the inefficiencies of a small business and showed me where I could improve.”
You can read more about Goodness Tea here: Goodness Tea Times - Life is and adventure; be excellent to each-other — Goodness Tea - Goodness Tea
If you’d like to get more clarity on the cost of your business’s products, you can request a meeting with one of our business advisors here: communityenterprise@cie-nw.org