Equal Opportunities in Stevia
As we’re celebrating the international women’s day today we thought we’d highlight our values in relation to gender equality. As a company with a Scandinavian background we’ve always treated it as a cornerstone in our business, and we’ve made it a point to make sure this continues to our operations and offices worldwide. At our offices in Paraguay, Granular PY, we work with a large number of women. Over 80% of our employees are women there and in Stockholm we’re at a roughly equal 50%. Including our operations in China, all three are led by women.
“We believe equal opportunity is key to creating a more creative and stimulating working environment. Especially in Paraguay this is helpful as it gives a good report with the close-knit families that run smallholder farms.” – Sophia Horn af Rantzien, Managing Director of The Real Stevia Company
Farmer Miriam Rosalba Cañiza with son
The non-profit Granular Foundation which we founded, and continue to support with 1% from every stevia purchase, works with the smallholder farmers in Paraguay to ensure they have the means to let everyone work, both men and women. By supplying cultivation training and beginner plantlets, farmers can focus on directly cultivating the plants to provide an income for their families instead of having a select few from the family be able to provide support.
“The stevia crop provides me with an income, but most important is the support from the organization. The technicians collect the dry stevia leaves at the farm and pay immediately, no other company is doing this.” – Mirian Roaslba Cañiza, one of our smallholder farmers cultivating stevia and other crops in her small farm located in the Paraguarí region.
You can hear more and see some of the families working with stevia together in our Sustainably Sourced Stevia video we released last year!