Plantago is leveraging its extensive experience and innovative thinking to promote the empowerment of marginalized rural suppliers while sustaining its vision to offer the best tea to the market.

As one of the leaders in tea industry in Bosnia and Herzegovina, for over 20 years, Plantago has been specializing in tea production, including cultivation, purchase and processing of medical herbs and forest fruits. Throughout its long-standing experience, Plantago has been dedicating significant efforts in sustaining its vision and cherishing sense of identity by maintaining quality and reputation, whilst remaining loyal to its customers and reliable partner to its suppliers.

Creating a tea lab to empower marginalized tea producers

Having observed the industry behind tea production, Plantago has noticed that the current retail sector set-up within tea category is depriving small-size plant growers and pickers from locally selling unconventional varieties of herbs, thus from real value income earnings due to the unfair trade and lower prices of standard tea products across retail stores. For such reason, Plantago came up with an idea to support an empowerment of such marginalized group while offering its customers an experience of enjoying a large assortment of high quality teas

‘As a predominantly dominant retail brand, Plantago has already grown to such an extent that it is a challenge for us to cooperate with small plant pickers and growers, because the quantities we need are rather large. Additionally, every day we witness a great number of customers who are picking what kind of teas they want to buy in supermarkets, thus being exposed to very cheap prices and various brands offering standardized variety of teas. That means that the person who grows and picks these herbs is unable to sell unconventional varieties that are not present in the retail mainstream and is practically paid nothing. Therefore, to uphold our company’s mission, we have decided to launch a new project called Čajana, a tea lab that will provide a visible space to accommodate a presentation of superb quality of teas and connect our suppliers with our customers. Apart from being a meeting point of our stakeholders, with its unique ambience, Čajana will enable users with the experience of enjoying a large assortment of finest teas, whilst stimulating fair trade and payment of premium prices for the premium quality of locally harvested herbal teas’, explains Aleksandar Vukmirović, Plantago founder and CEO.

The Plantago team, standing behind Čajana brand will ensure that the entire value chain, from harvesting premium quality plants, cooperating with small growers and pickers, to processing and exclusive packaging is implemented and gets transparently communicated to its customers. Aleksandar explains:

"We are aware that such a concept cannot be implemented overnight, hence we thoroughly considered our value proposition, supply chain, internal resources and capacity, as well as the needs of our existing and potential future customers. Čajana will not only focus on offering customers what they are looking for but will also be a place for knowledge sharing. It will ensure the full experience drawn from the entire value chain, from the initial informative presentation on the origin of the herb and its benefits, identified grower and picker persona, appealing packaging, to the enjoyment of consuming tea in equally vivid ambience. It is also worth noting that we will continue building up on our key principle of maintaining quality and ensuring healthy offerings for our customers. Thus, in our production process, we will only use natural ingredients, without the addition of preservatives, artificial flavors and colors, and will pack them in natural and biodegradable materials."

The next steps

To ensure that its customers receive full experience and small rural suppliers are well recognized and empowered, Plantago will invest in building up a skillful and knowledgeable team that will coordinate all stakeholders as well as facilitate on-going customer relationships and brand development.

"Through Čajana, Plantago employees will undergo a customer service training and will get an opportunity to develop and further enhance their knowledge about various herbs and teas. Such will enable them to provide an outstanding customer experience and be equipped with valuable skills to support the sustainable growth of small herb growers and pickers. This way, our team will ensure transparent cooperation and fair-trade principles with our suppliers who will in turn, get a trusted partner to promote their empowerment and track their progress as they develop and achieve ever-increasing revenues," emphasizes Aleksandar.

Apart from the ambient atmosphere, Čajana will also contribute to Plantago brand acting as a platform for research and marketing that will offer real life communication with customers and simultaneously drive the growth of Plantago as well. Aleksandar explains:

"Čajana will be the hub for marketing communication and online presence for the Plantago, Čajana as well as our sister brand Biljna Pomoć. That way, we will satisfy vast customer preferences, offer product personalization choices, continue creating stories around Čajana concept and invest efforts on research and its further development."

As such, the SDG Accelerator Programme was a rewarding opportunity to leverage Plantago’s long-lasting experience and innovative thinking to promote the empowerment of marginalized herb growers and pickers while sustaining its vision to offer the best tea to the market.