Paruva Kaalam Fair-Trade Soap: Project Capture by Design Impact

THE

PARUVA KAALAM FAIR TRADE SOAP PROJECT

Project Overview THE PROBLEM In the semi-arid regions of India, agriculture provides limited employment opportunities and other sustainable alternatives must be found to support rural populations. THE SOLUTION Our partner, The Organization of Development Action and Maintenance (ODAM), invested in promoting Jatropha, a tree that can thrive in semi-arid conditions and produces seeds with a high oil content. After connecting this tree with local farmers, they started a small bio-diesel center to purchase the Jatropha seeds and convert them into bio-diesel. The production of bio-diesel also creates glycerin. Unable to find a purchaser for this raw glycerin, ODAM decided to turn it into soap, which they hoped to market. The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact

DID YOU KNOW? Jeyaraj founded ODAM after a career working with children as the headmaster of a rural school.

Partner ODAM is a south Indian organization that has provided childrenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s education, womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s empowerment, environmental awareness, and agricultural development services in Tamil Nadu, India since 1996. The Erikoodu Briquette Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact

Why Soap? ODAM decided to produce soap because it is a straight-forward, value-added product that can be produced primarily from glycerin and Jatropha oil. They hoped that through selling the soap they could sustain their bio-diesel production unit. ODAMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Bio-Diesel Ecosystem:

Seeds

Farmers Coop

Bio-diesel Facility

Bio-gas

Bio-diesel

Glycerin

Soap Facility

Soap Making The first thing we needed to do was learn about making soap. We worked with ODAM’s chemist—Raj Sekar—to understand how to make soap in this environment. At the time, ODAM was only making soaps one at a time, trying to perfect the formula. DID YOU KNOW? At a basic level, soapmaking is easy. You can do it at home.

Market Audit We explored the Indian soap market and determined that we would need to export the soap to achieve the profit margins needed to support the project. While we were learning how to make soap, Kaleidoscope explored the craft soap market in the US through audits and expert interviews. This provided us with a basis for understanding where our soap could fit into the crowded US soap market.

Most importantly, the audit asked us to consider several questions as we developed the soap:

BUILD A BAR

Made by People: What is our tone of voice? Handmade Designs: How handmade should it feel? Source Story: What best represents our â&#x20AC;&#x153;Source Storyâ&#x20AC;?? Gourmet Ingredients: Are there ingredients that help us tell our story? Celebrate the Product: How important is the soap itself as part of the story? Custom Iconography: How can we incorporate iconography that tells the products story?

Community Brainstorm To answer these questions, we worked closely with ODAM to design a community brainstorm on the new soap. This brainstorm focused mostly on telling stories about what was important to people in the region and how this should be reflected in the soap. Since soaps are defined by their scents, we focused a portion of the brainstorm on considering what local scents would be good for the product. Participants were asked to reflect and share their favorite scents and earliest scent memories.

DID YOU KNOW? This brainstorm was when we first defined the concept of embedded design!

Brand Development Our US team of Kaleidoscope researchers conducted interviews with 25 people in our target market to understand how we should tell the ODAM soap story. This included what images, facts, and details they connected with the most. We also tested several brand narratives for the packaging and decided on a direction called Paruva Kaalam—which means “seasons” in Tamil.

Insights BE RESPONSIBLE. Consumers viewed social and environmental responsibility as being part of the same movement, although they participated in them differently. Helping others was seen more as charity, while helping the environment was an imperative. BE POSITIVE. The tone of the brand needed to be positive. BE AUTHENTIC. Rich images of communities and farming resonated best. Authenticity meant, naming a region, adding a signature, showing a face, displaying raw images of the people, marketing a low production quantity, or providing numbers to represent information.

Package Design With knowledge of soap making, community values, and consumer needs we started to design the soap packaging and brand. This took place through several rounds that all involved community input and feedback on the designs. The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact

DID YOU KNOW? International packages sent by India Post must be wrapped in fabric. Inspiring this design!

Eventually, we narrowed to three basic concepts and reviewed these with our core team and a local printer who could consult on costs. Balancing cost, consumer and community we chose a direction.

Muniandi

Jeyaraj

Pitchai

Kate

Illavarsu

DID YOU KNOW? Everyone got to weigh in on the package design.

Elango

After choosing the final direction we worked closely with the printer to understand what we could accomplish at his shop within our cost requirements.

Scent Research We needed to match relevant fragrances to the different soaps in Paruva Kaalamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s line-up. Working with regional essential oil producers we were able to identify organically derived scents that aligned with our seasons. The second part of this process involved finding the right balance of mixed fragrances for our soaps. This required tedious testingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; making hundreds of samples to find the best scent formulas.

DID YOU KNOW? This is one reason not to make soaps with alot of sugar.

The soap formula not only had to smell great, it also needed to produce bars that looked different from each other. Eventually, we were able to create four distinct varieties.

Process Design It was important to the community and the brand that Paruva Kaalam be fully hand-made by local artisans. We worked with ODAM and local craftsmen to build soap making equipment that allowed for small batch production.

DID YOU KNOW? Three dimensional computer renderings were very helpful for communicating with local carpenters.

We produced several soap molds, each making a block of soap that could be cut into 20 bars on the cutting tool. These were then cured on our 240 soap capacity drying rack for a few days.

Pour it.

The process also involved embossing the soaps with the Paruva Kaalam logo, polishing, and packaging the finished product.

Cut it.

Stamp it.

Wrap it.

Glue it.

Pack it.

Final Product The finished product seamlessly combined the senses of four Indian seasons, connecting US consumers to a small community thousands of miles away.

Business Development Making soap wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t the only challenge we faced. We also needed to work with ODAM on how to manage the business. Tracking costs and supplies and making sales were just as important as consistently producing a great product. The process eventually ended up with ODAM developing a subsidiary business to manage the exports, called ODAM Rural Crafts.

We supported this process through developing detailed operations plans, marketing materials, and business forms.

DID YOU KNOW? ODAM worked with their SHGs to find women that couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t work in agriculture, but were a good fit for soap making jobs.

Training Workers We worked closely with ODAMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s staff to develop the Paruva Kaalam business. They, in turn, trained and hired four women to work on the project.

DID YOU KNOW? The first store to carry our soap was Park & Vine in Cincinnati.

US Sales In early 2012 we received our first shipment of soaps and started to connect them with local retailers. Eventually, we grew the network to five different retail locations in three states.

Outcomes + Over 1600 bars of soap sold. + Over $1,800 in sales for ODAM Rural Crafts. + Four previously unemployable women hired full time for three months. + Built ODAMs small enterprise capacity, resulting in the establishment of ODAM Rural Crafts. This entity has already spun off a few other micro-enterprises aimed at womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s empowerment.

Team

Contact

DESIGN IMPACT: Kate Hanisian, Ramsey Ford, Paul Long, Kitu Jhaveri, Daniel Timothy Edmundson

RAMSEY FORD Design Director Design Impact ramsey@d-impact.org www.d-impact.org