WHERE SOUL MATTERS MORE
THAN SCALE
In the international township of Auroville near
Puducherry, it's not just money that motivates expatriate entrepreneurs. Social
and environmental concerns drive their businesses that make everything from
artisanal chocolates and jams to natural fragrances and organic apparel
Frenchman Fabien Bontems has lived in India most
of his life. A sound engineer by training, he began to take an interest in
chocolates when his Australian wife Jane Mason joined him in Auroville, an
international community on the outskirts of Puducherry, formerly known as
Pondicherry. A trained chocolate maker and raw food chef, Mason is both vegan
and a chocolate connoisseur, a combination that meant she found herself in
chocodrought in India. The couple began researching India's cocoa industry in
2013 and visited farms for over 12 months to get a feel of the market.Just over
a year later, Mason & Co is beginning to acquire a reputation as India's
first bean-tobar organic and natural chocolate maker.
After a soft launch in Puducherry last March,
Mason & Co has expanded rapidly with a new production facility and retail
sales in five cities across the country. “We are in the process of setting up
online sales and are working directly with like-minded gourmet and organic
stores,“ says founder Mason. “We support organic, sustainable, vegan and fair
trade practices. All our ingredients are sourced within India and are 100%
chemical and preservative free.“
Mason & Co is among the 100-odd medium and
micro enterprises dotting the leafy environs of Auroville. Some of them have
been around since the 1970s. Others are barely a couple of years old. But they
all share a common value system -they are into eco-friendly artisanal entrepreneurship.
One of the largest companies built on similar
principles and based out of Auroville is fragrance brand Maroma. It is also the
largest contributor to the community fund to which all Auroville businesses
contribute a percentage of their earnings.
Started by Paul Pinthon as a hand-rolled incense
making unit in the late 1970s, Maro ma now has a body care range, an
anti-insect range and an extensive home fragrance range that is retailed across
the country through well-known retail chains like Good Earth. Pinthon was later
joined by his business partner Laura Reddy and the two founders grew the
business bit by bit from just a couple of hands in a thatched hut to a
manufacturing entity employing 110 people.
“We're basically exporters,“ says Maroma's
general manager Roma Hira. “We have Maroma USA LLC, which takes care of US and
Canada sales, and we have distributors in Italy, France and UK. We also sell in
Sweden, Norway, Germany, Spain, Singapore and Australia and we're in the process
of entering new markets like Turkey,“ she says. The company's also trying to
expand the India business.
“For the products, the stress is on being as
natural as possible,“ says Hira. “Some product lines are already totally
natural and others are moving towards that. At some point, we will look at
going all organic (no synthetic pesticide herbicide or chemical fertilizer).“
Fulfilling the dos and don'ts of the World Fair
Trade Organization and Fair Trade Forum India were a cakewalk for Maroma given
the inclusive and green credo of Auroville's business community. That's
probably why this experimental township, based on the world vision and integral
yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, has birthed a range of businesses that
are not only environmentally friendly but also inclusive in terms of employment
of local villagers, particularly women.
Take Upasana, an organic apparel business that
works with local weavers to create what it calls socially responsible fashion.
Founded by Uma Prajapati in 1998 and run by a core team of Aurovillians, most
going by their first names -Geeta, Gladys, Manoj, Shubha, Shubha and Torkil
-Upasana has been shifting from using conventional cotton to organic cotton
over the last five years. It has also been running specific projects involving
farmers and weavers, including one with the weavers of Banaras.
“We work with organic cotton, khadi and
handlooms and have had a good response to our products across India,“ says
Prajapati. Upasana retails through its Janaki-branded stores as well as through
tie-ups with national retail chains.“We work closely with Fabindia,“ she says.
GOING
NATIONAL, NATURALLY
Auroville's potential as a crucible for
conscious brands is being tapped by national chains like Fabindia not just for
apparel but also food products. Jam, jelly, preserves and condiment brand
Naturellement are cases in point. Naturellem e n t 's S we d e n b o r n f o u
n d e r M a r t i n a Ljungquist began producing breakfast products for the
Auroville community 24 years ago.
“The idea was to use the surplus of fruit from
org anic far ms in Auroville,“ says Ljungquist. “People, and not just in
Auroville, liked the products and that demand created the company. My
philosophy is to produce handcrafted, non-industrial, natural and organic food
products for Indian consumers.“
Fabindia is its biggest customer. “We produce
three types of breakfast cereals, several jams, mango pickles and chutney,
peanut and sesame butter for them. We also sell to some hotels like Trident in
Chennai. In terms of retail footprint, after having concentrating on Chennai
last year, we will now move to Bengaluru. We will soon launch our range of
breakfast cereals across India,“ Ljungquist says.
Naturellement, like Maroma, Upasana and most
other Auroville businesses, employs women from villages surrounding Auroville
as part of its community development initiative.
Auroville's business mantra is less about
profits and scale and more about creativity and community. That's why Mason and
her husband spend time on the farms where they source their cocoa beans “as it
is important for us to get to know our suppliers to ensure only the best
practices and energies are involved,“ she says.
Similarly, the Naturellement factory is so
pretty that Ljungquist has started a cafe there, which has become a
much-visited restaurant.Ask any Auroville entrepreneur about revenue and
profits and you will be told `that's not the point' of business the Auroville
way.
“Auroville offers a supportive environment for
startups and growing businesses as there are lots of creative and like-minded
people to draw inspiration from,“ says Mason.
In this universal town, it's soul that matters
far more than scale.
|
Nandini Sengupta
|
TOI8MAY15
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