Traceback your Product

and explore your

impact on people

& the environment

Impact Highlights
Creating a

FAIR ECONOMY

100%

of the EoL farmers have contact-bound long-term relationships with companies they’re supplying to.

Creating a

FAIR SOCIETY

100%

of full-time employees who worked to produce this product receive health insurance and safe working conditions.

Life Long Learning &

WELLBEING

10%

of the working time in Isis and Lotus factories is dedicated to art and self-development activities; to promote wellbeing and happiness at work.

Protecting the

ENVIRONMENT

40%

decrease in the non-organic waste was achieved by the Lotus processing factory.

Farming

The white hibiscus is grown in Egypt; on 8 farms Located  in Wahat, Minia and Asuit. They are Demeter certified farms that grow under the principle of the highest form of organic agriculture known as biodynamic, providing the highest quality products and enriches biodiversity.

Additional to the regenerative methods of biodynamic agriculture, the jojoba plant in itself is sustainable, requiring little irrigation and pests resistance. Moreover, only the seeds are used, making replantation unnecessary.

Economy of Love helps the farmers generate more income with the monetization of carbon sequestration and avoidance, through the EoL Carbon Credits.

Through the EoL fund and microcredits programs, farmers are encouraged to plant more trees, produce more compost and use renewable energy on their farms, thus prominently contributing to climate change mitigating.

Meet The Farmers

get to the source of production

Waleed

Farmer in El Wahat El Bahareya, Egypt

Waleed is an agriculture engineer in Wahat SEKEM. His children study at SEKEM school, also his wife teaches Arabic there. They are living a wonderful new experience surrounded by calming beautiful places. He’s a hard worker farmer trying to cover all the herbs needed in the market.

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Gomaa

Farmer in Fayoum, Egypt

Gomaa Hassan has his own Demeter-certified biodynamic farmland in Fayoum, where he grows Sesame along with other crops. He’s been working in biodynamic agriculture for 24 years. This is why he believes in the importance of growing biodynamically, as it protects his family’s health and his land’s ability to regenerate itself.

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Abdel-Ghaffar

Farmer in Asiut, Egypt

Abdel-Ghaffar is a partner with SEKEM for 15 years, growing biodynamic crop on his farm called Abdel-Ghaffar Farm. He uses biodynamic preparation and compost with no pesticide. SEKEM covers all their needs and takes samples for analyzing the quality of the soil.

Processing

After receiving the raw material from the farms in recyclable plastic bags samples are taken to the labs to ensure the compliance with organic/biodynamic standards. The white hibiscus is going through cleaning processes where it is being sieved and/or milled with multiple machines and ready to be packed.

The white hibiscus goes to CO2 fumigation chamber for disinfesting to prevent and get rid of any pests in the grains as it’s toxic for insects.

The organic wastes are sent to sites to be reused either as compost or animal fodder. 

Factory workers work in safe conditions and receive health consultancies (in topics such as nutrition, physiotherapy, and lifestyle coaching) to promote well-being in the workplace.

Packing

After cleaning, the white hibiscus is filled into 20Kg paper bags and labeled with the most important information. Then a final Sample is withdrawn for another microbiology analysis lab. Finally, the already-packed product is waiting for the Loading Date.

Before the white hibiscus enters a container it has to be treated again with CO2 to make sure that we do not get any insects or pests into the container.

During the processing they are kept in these blue polyethylene bags that are recyclable.

 iSiS factory sells their non-organic waste left from the processing stage to external recycling entities in Egypt.

Distribution

The white hibiscus is loaded into containers, trucks or cars and delivered either to ISIS company or shipped into the world. In 16 different countries around the world.

iSiS always opts for sea freight and only makes the decision to use air freight on the rare occasion that a client orders a small amount that can not be transported by sea.

The company’s transportation emissions are calculated and monitored to actively work on finding ways to reduce the emissions and then offsetting the rest that can’t be helped. Check out iSiS’s assigned credits.

Drivers have a limit on the number of hours they can drive per day, to ensure their safety.

Meet The Employees

The people who processed, packaged and distributed your product

Hassan

Factory Engineer in Lotus 

Hassan is in charge of the raw cleaning and packing machine in the processing facility of Lotus. Since 17 years he is working in Lotus and enjoys that work here is combined with culture program.

Marwa

Quality Manager in IsIs 

Marwa has been working in the tea department of IsIs factory for more than 8 years. Together with her husband and two children she lives on the Sekem mother farm.

Ahmed

Factory Engineer at SEKEM

Ahmed has been working in SEKEM for four years, and lives right next to the SEKEM farm with his family.

Abdallah

Distributor in SEKEM

Abdallah has been an employee in SEKEM for over five years. He is responsible for distributing the finished products to stores all over Cairo.

What is the True Price?

Are there hidden costs that the price doesn't reflect?

True Price Comparision

Sustainably & ethically produced products add value to society. However, when comparing prices, we don’t take into account the long-term impact of the product. For example, since these Dates are sequestering Co2e it is actually saving up to 0.14USD per kilo! This means that it is cheaper than products that emit Co2e, but so often the price tag doesn’t reflect that.

We encourage you to compare products based on their true price; the price that reflects the hidden costs that we and future generations eventually pay for.

This cultivation of Dates  saves up to 0.25 USD/Kilo, by sequestering carbon into the soil.

Examples of Hidden Costs

Costs that are not reflected on the price tag, but are eventually paid by society

WATER

REPROCESSING COST

Society is paying taxes to clean water sources from agriculture’s chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, as well as the irresponsible disposal of wastewater from factories, in order to make it usable/drinkable water.

HEALTH COSTS

 

The use of pesticides in agriculture eventually affects the human body and therefore increases medical treatment costs.

 

 

ENVIRONMENTAL

DAMAGE

 

Society has to bear the long-term cost caused by disruptive agriculture e.g. soil erosion, desertification, loss of biodiversity.

 

Locations

Check out the locations of all the farms, companies who were involved in making this product!
discover the origin of your product

Mandisha

Know more about their Carbon Credit production

Rahma

Know more about their Carbon Credit production

We hope this information helped you Choose Your Impact!
And make mindful purchasing decisions that leave a positive impact on people and the environment

Interested to know more about the companies above? Click here to download the SEKEM Sustainability Report

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    (Co2e) Carbon dioxide and equivalent; is a metric that  accounts for carbon dioxide and  the other greenhouse gases (methane, nitrous oxide, and others)

    Carbon sequestration is the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. It is one method of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere with the goal of reducing global climate change

    Full-cost accounting (also referred to as true-cost accounting, total value or total impact) is an approach that gives monetary value to non-market goods, such as environmental and social assets, in order to analyze the costs and benefits of business and/or policy decisions.

    Biodynamic agriculture is a holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming, that requires the farmer to be highly connected to nature, and the ecosystem, in order to work with nature, and grow food organically, regenerate landscapes, sequesters carbon, and maintain biodiversity on the farm

    Growing only one crop on the land in a given crop season.