FAQs

The trustea program seeks to promote and facilitate the sustainable transformation of the Indian tea industry based on globally accepted sustainability principles by managing and implementing the trustea code. The program focuses on soil conservation and management, water management, fertilizer management, crop protection, food safety, health, safety and welfare of the workers, working conditions and labour rights, biodiversity and environmental management, waste and pollution management. The code has clear social and environmental objectives including protection and preservation of the environment, developing and imparting training and education programmes which will have a beneficial impact on the social, environmental and sustainability issues of the Indian tea industry and social welfare and improvement of livelihood of workers and small growers.

Ownership: The trustea Code is developed, owned and managed by the Indian tea industry stakeholders.

Food safety: A comprehensive set of food safety components has been integrated into the Code.

Good manufacturing practices: The Code incorporates tea manufacturing processes and other good practices covering tea factories.

Lower certification cost: Cost of trustea certification is lower than other sustainability certifications. This is achieved through innovative verification systems by external audits in alternate years and use of locally-trained auditors.

Smallholders: Until now, small tea growers and small tea estates were not part of the sustainable supply chains in India. The trustea code brings these groups into the sustainability fold.

Support: trustea invests in highly experienced field staff and officers to assist producers in compliance with the code.

The trustea certificate holder will be the tea plantation company, the bought leaf factory, or the independent producer groups along with the factory. The Code covers all aspects of production and manufacturing. The entry point of the Code for compliance will be the factories in estates, bought leaf factories or grower group representatives having an arrangement for processing, who will then work with the production sites and the smallholders respectively.

In the first year, the entity opting for verification will go through an external verification audit by auditors approved by the code secretariat and as per the verification protocol. The audits will subsequently be conducted every alternate year. During the year when there is no external audit, the verified unit must undertake an internal audit and submit the report to the trustea Secretariat.

The Code is designed towards a progressive achievement of complete compliance by the third year. The “Mandatory” and “Other Criteria” in the Code have been divided into four segments covering 11 chapters. In each segment, the verified unit will need to meet 100% of the mandatory control points and 50% other criteria in the first year, 65% in the second year and 80% in the third year. If a control point is not applicable, it will be adjusted accordingly for the percentage of control points required for verification.

However, a non-applicable control point will not get any additional percentage point. The total compliance percentage points (Mandatory and Other Criteria) is -Year 1: 82%, Year 2: 88% and Year 3: 93%. Further, there will be 0.5 marks for minor non-compliances if the auditors can assure that the unit is progressing towards full compliance.

trustea, the Indian tea programme, identifies and approves select audit firms to conduct the audits. The programme will ensure that the cost of the audits is kept at optimum levels. The auditors will be chosen by the tea businesses themselves from the list of empanelled audit firms. The experienced Implementation Partner teams on the ground will provide support to the estates, smallholders and bought leaf factories in complying with the code, leading to a level of compliance which bring them to a state of readiness to be assessed by the third-party external audit firm.

The trustea programme is governed by a multi-stakeholder trustea Sustainable Tea Council representing the Indian tea industry. trustea Sustainable Tea Council has representation from the following categories:

• Producers – 4 (2 each from north and south India)
• Small Tea Growers – 1
• Bought Leaf Factories – 1
• Tea Packers & Buyers – 4
• Not-for-profit Organisation/Civil Society – 3
• Research/Academia – 1

More and more consumers globally are insisting that the products they pay for are sourced sustainably. This is no longer a western phenomenon. The Indian consumer is also becoming more aware and will soon demand that brands deliver sustainably sourced products. Many leading buyers of tea in India are moving forward with a structured and committed program to increase the sourcing level of sustainably certified tea. This trend indicates that being certified to the Indian tea sustainability program, trustea will ensure a highly competitive market access for the trustea- certified organisations.

More and more consumers globally are insisting that the products they pay for are sourced sustainably. This is no longer a western phenomenon. The Indian consumer is also becoming more aware and will soon demand that brands deliver sustainably sourced products. Many leading buyers of tea in India are moving forward with a structured and committed program to increase the sourcing level of sustainably certified tea. This trend indicates that being certified to the Indian tea sustainability program —trustea — will ensure highly a competitive market access for the trustea certified organizations.