Planting the seeds of fair trade
It is hard for big companies to act ethically, but small companies can help them, Green and Black's William Kendall tells Jonathan Moules
Ethics and enterprise are strange bedfellows. But for William Kendall, chief executive of Green and Black's, the luxury chocolate, biscuits, drinking chocolate and ice cream maker, they go together well.
Green and Black's makes a business of ethical behaviour. Its products tick the right boxes: they are organic and they also guarantee according to the company a decent wage for their suppliers in the cocoa bean farms of Belize, Dominican Republic and Madagascar.
But this is not pure altruism. Sales hit ￡23.4m last year. This year, they are expected to rise by about 50 per cent to ￡34m.
It was money-making rather than any high-minded ideas about making the world a better place that first interested Mr Kendall in the Green and Black's business.
With Nick Beard, his business partner, he bought an 85 per cent stake in Green and Black's in 1998, after a dinner party conversation with Craig Sams, the company's founder.
Mr Sams, who is also chairman of the Soil Association, an organic farming pressure group, is “very ethical”, according to Mr Kendall.
“He was running Green and Black's as a trendy food for people with better beliefs,” he explains.
“We said that we agreed with all of the values he took on board but we wanted to make money out of it. If not, what's the point? If we go bust, we would let down the Mayan farmers, which was on the cards at the time.”
Mr Kendall says that organic farming and fair trade arrangements make sense economically and not just ethically.
He explains that modern food production and government subsidies have created a divide between the suppliers and the consumers of food. Organic farming is a way of reviving trust in food production.
“Most farmers are little more than civil servants, administering their subsidy,” he says. “Dealing directly with your customer is deemed to be an eccentric activity. So organic farming is a bridge between customer and supplier.”
He says that there are similar economic grounds for fair trade. “Surely all trade should be fair,” he exclaims.
But he notes that, in the real world, truly fair trade especially in food production is hard to achieve because of the existence of statesubsidies and tradebarriers.
“If you want to be a farmer in the third world, you can't make chocolate for a fair price,” he says. “But if I can push fair trade hey, that is a good move.”
Reflecting someone who tackles the dilemmas of profit and principle on a day-to-day basis, Mr Kendall is full of contradictions.
He lives in Islington, the London borough that is the spiritual home of Tony Blair's Britain, but he espouses the hearty views so typical of business leaders in London: attacking the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, government red tape and regulatory interference in business.
Moreover, he champions small business but, at the same time, is full of praise for McDonald's, the US fast food giant, which has demonstrated great agility in adjusting its menus in the face of obesity scares.
Also, while he has, as head of Green & Black's, opened up fair trade with Mayan cocoa farmers in the impoverished jungle region of Toledo in southern Belize, he has remained content to sit on the board of Keystone Investment, a trust fund with substantial shares in three big tobacco companies.
Perhaps most surprising especially for the “trendy” people that make up the bulk of Green & Black's customers Mr Kendall says that ethics is a matter of branding. In other words, it is not at the heart of why people purchase something in the first place.
“I don't think people go out and buy ‘ethics',” he says. “They go out and buy a product with a whole lot of qualities associated with that.”
For this reason, Mr Kendall is cautious about making too much of his company's ethical label for all its business potential. “Sure, it is good to people out there [in Belize],” he says. “But it can be a millstone if you use it in the wrong way.” He prefers to emphasise the quality of the product namely, the chocolate. Only that will guarantee the company's long-term success.
“You have to build a business around a really good product,” he adds. “You cannot build your business around being ethical, because there is someone who can come out and be more ethical than you.”
To illustrate his point, Mr Kendall turns to the history of Cadbury, the British chocolate dynasty that bought a 5 per cent stake in Green and Black's two years ago. When Cadbury was founded, its Quaker owners ran an ethical business, building communities for their workers in Birmingham as well as the factory to make the confectionery, Mr Kendall notes. “It's just that they were being ethical in Bourneville, but not in the Caribbean.”
Nowadays, however, Cadbury has been cast as a politically incorrect big business operator, buying plantation rather than fair trade cocoa. Green and Black's has positioned itself against the big chocolate makers. So why did the company take Cadbury's cash? Is this not another contradiction? Mr Kendall says he has no qualms about taking Cadbury's money. “Our mandate from our shareholders is to get them a good return,” he says.
Moreover, he claims that Cadbury's executives have learnt a great deal from the Green and Black's ice cream manufacturing business, which earns higher margins than Cadbury's equivalent operation largely because it allows its manufacturers to define the way that they make the product.
“With a tiny, tiny bit of investment, we have opened their eyes to another way to do business,” Mr Kendall notes, with a proselytiser's zeal.
“By being involved with Cadbury, we can make them more moral than their competitors,” he adds.
It is very hard for big companies to remain ethical, Mr Kendall claims. This is why they need small companies to show them the way.
Mr Kendall recounts his last business venture, the New Covent Garden Soup Company, which was sold to the food group S. Daniels for ￡22m in December 1997.
“When we were doing the soup company, just getting it off the ground, just getting it to work, we spoke to big companies. But they didn't want to know.
“Then suddenly something changed. Suddenly all the big companies wanted to talk to us.
“When we first sold the Soup Company, I ended up running it with the new owner and I lost all my key employees. I thought we didn't pay very well. I thought there is no reason for them to go. But they all got poached.”
So why did they go? “All these blue chip companies wanted to hire people who had worked for us, who had been through this growth period. That opened my eyes.”
Just as big companies benefit, so the small ones do too. He thinks that small companies need to “piggyback” on their bigger rivals so that both sides can benefit. If that means feeding big companies with executives from small businesses, then so be it. So what would happen if Green and Black's was sold to a large multinational company?
“That would be a result,” he says. “We would make a lot of money for our shareholders and we would plant a very fertile seed in a larger company to carry on the fair trade.”
播下公平贸易的种子
让道德和企业同床共枕似乎很奇怪。但对Green and Black’s的首席执行官威廉?肯德尔（William Kendall）来说，二者能够水乳交融。Green and Black’s是高档巧克力、饼干、巧克力饮品和冰淇淋生产商。
Green and Black’s利用道德行为促成了商机。在这方面，公司产品符合了各项道德指标：不但采用有机食物，而且公司还声称保证伯利兹、多米尼加共和国和马达加斯加可可豆种植园那些供应商能得到像样的工资。
但这并不纯粹是利他行为。去年公司的销售额达到2340万英镑。预计今年将上升约50%，至3400万英镑。
最初使肯德尔先生对Green and Black’s感兴趣的动机是赚钱，而不是什么要把世界变得更好之类的高尚想法。
1998年，在与Green and Black’s的创始人克雷格?萨姆斯（Craig Sams）一次宴会上的交谈后，肯德尔和生意合伙人尼克?比尔德（Nick Beard）一起收购了该公司85%的股权。
据肯德尔先生称，萨姆斯先生做生意“很有道德”。萨姆斯先生目前还是有机农业压力团体英国土壤协会（Soil Association）的主席。
“他当初经营Green and Black’s，就是把它当作一种时髦食品，提供给那些有着更美好信念的人，”他解释说。
“我们说，我们接受他所提出的所有价值观，但我们想赚钱。如果不赚钱，还有什么意义呢？如果我们破产，我们就会让拉美的农民失望，这在当时是有可能的。”
肯德尔先生表示，提倡有机农业和公平贸易不仅在道德方面讲得通，在经济上也是如此。
他解释说，现代食品生产和政府补贴已使食品供应者和消费者之间产生了分歧。有机农业是恢复人们对食品生产信任度的一个途径。
“大多数农民就跟公务员差不多，管理着他们的补贴，”他说，“直接与顾客打交道被视为一种古怪的做法。因此有机农业就成了连接顾客和供应商的桥梁。”
他说，提倡公平贸易也存在类似的经济理由。“当然所有贸易都应该公平，”他感叹道。
但他指出，在现实世界里，由于存在政府补贴和贸易壁垒，真正公平的贸易是很难实现的，尤其是在食品生产领域。
“如果你想成为第三世界的农民，你就无法以公平的价格生产巧克力，”他说，“但如果我能推动公平贸易，那就是一件好事。”
肯德尔先生本人就是矛盾的化身，就像每一位天天都要解决利润与原则矛盾的人一样。
他住在伦敦伊斯灵顿区，这里是托尼?布莱尔（Tony Blair）管治下英国的精神圣地。但他也拥护典型的伦敦商界领袖们的强烈主张：攻击欧盟的共同农业政策（Common Agricultural Policy）、政府官僚作风和监管部门对商业的干预。
此外，他支持小企业，但同时对麦当劳（McDonald’s）充满赞誉。面对肥胖症恐惧，这家美国食品巨头调整了食物组合，应变行动非常敏捷。
另外，作为Green Black’s的领导人，他开启了与伯利兹南部托莱多贫困丛林地区当地可可豆农民的公平贸易。同时他也满足于担任着Keystone投资公司的董事。Keystone投资公司是个信托基金，持有三家大型烟草公司的大量股份。
肯德尔先生表示，企业道德是个品牌建设问题。这可能最令人感到意外，尤其对于那些“时髦”的人来说，那些人构成了Green Black’s顾客的主体。换句话说，道德并非人们做出某种购物选择时首选想到的核心问题。
“我认为，人们并不是去购买‘道德’，”他说，“他们出去购买一件产品时，上面就有许多特质与之关联。”
有鉴于此，肯德尔先生很谨慎，尽管公司的道德标签有着种种商业潜力，但他不愿过分张扬这个标签。“当然，这对那些（伯利兹的）人有好处，”他说，“但如果用错了，它也可以成为一个负担。”他更喜欢强调产品（也就是巧克力）的质量。只有这才能确保公司长期获得成功。
“你必须依靠一种确实不错的产品建立企业，”他补充说，“你不能靠讲道德来建立企业，因为还会出现比你更讲道德的人。”
为了阐明他的观点，肯德尔先生援引了吉百利（Cadbury）的历史。这家英国巧克力王朝两年前购买了Green and Black’s 5%的股份。在吉百利成立之初，是由基督教贵格会教友们拥有并经营着一家讲道德的企业，在伯明翰为工人建立社区，并建造工厂生产巧克力，但肯德尔先生指出：“他们只是在伯明翰讲道德；在加勒比海就不讲了。”
可现在，吉百利已被视为一家有政治错误的大企业，它收购种植园，而不是进行可可的公平贸易。Green and Black’s让自己处在与这些大型巧克力生产商对立的位置。那么公司为何要收吉百利的钱呢？这岂不是又一个矛盾吗？肯德尔先生表示，对于接受吉百利的钱，他丝毫没有感到不安。他说，“股东对我们的要求是给他们好的回报。”
此外，他声称，吉百利的经理们已经从Green and Black’s的冰淇淋制造业务中学到了很多东西。而Green and Black’s这块业务的利润率要高于吉百利相应的业务，大部分原因在于，Green and Black’s允许制造商自行确定产品的生产方式。
“只用一点点投资，我们就让他们见识了做生意的另一种方式，”肯德尔先生以一种劝人信教的热诚说道。
“通过让吉百利介入，我们可以让他们比竞争对手更有道德，”他补充说。
肯德尔先生宣称，大公司要保持道德很不容易。这就是为什么它们需要小公司引路的原因。
肯德尔先生回忆起他上一次的商业冒险，那是新考文特加登制汤公司（New Covent Garden Soup Company）。该公司于1997年12月以2200万英镑卖给了食品集团S.丹尼尔斯（S. Daniels）。
“当我们经营这家制汤公司时，只是刚让它起步，刚让它开始运作，我们同一些大公司接洽，但它们都不想理睬。”
“但突然之间情况变了。一下子所有的大公司都想跟我们谈了。”
“当我们第一次出售这家制汤公司后，结果是我与新业主一起经营，并失去了我所有重要的雇员。我以为是我们付的薪水不高。我认为他们没有理由走，但他们都被挖走了。”
那么他们为何要走呢？“所有这些大型蓝筹公司都想雇佣曾为我们工作过的人――那些曾经历过这一增长阶段的人。这让我看清了真相。”
正如大公司会受益，小公司也会。他认为，小公司需要“骑在大竞争对手的背上”，这样双方都能受益。如果这意味着要把小公司的管理人员提供给大公司，那也不要紧。那么，如果Green and Black’s被卖给一家大型跨国公司，又会怎么样呢？
“那将是这样一个结果，”他说，“我们将为股东赚到很多钱，而且我们将在一家更大的公司播下富有生命力的种子，来继续开展公平交易。”
