Solidarity Imports
SOLIDARITY IMPORT???
Kinobio BXL's purpose is to import organic agrumes from a small cooperative near Corinth in Greece. It all started about 5 years ago, and is now bearing its fruits by supporting local producers dramatically affected by the Troika's diktat post-2008 economic crisis :
- successive tax increases,
- new taxes, particularly on gas for agriculture,
- payment by anticipation of income tax based on harvest to come became mandatory and infringement punished of jail time etc.
Within 5 years, along with other groups in Europe, (Germany, France, Czech Republic), we supported a handful of small local producers who wanted to break the deadly downward spiral by putting resources together and collaborate. By offering them a market for their fruits outside of the collapsing Greek market, by ensuring them a fair price (1 euro a kilo at least), they slowly crawled out of misery, learned to share again, to regain trust and confidence...
Over the years here in Brussels, we were willilng to take this momentum, this opportunity to support other small producers, be they local or beyond, and new products were added to the menu. Everything is ORGANIC certified or not certified, selected based on the project ethics as well as the product quality :)
We organise one order per month during the agrumes season (October through May), on a pre-order basis via this online platform, you pay what you order, no intermediary, the whole organisation is entirely based on volunteering.
PRICES : STAKES
The situation
- Prices have remained unchanged since the onset more 5 years ago
- Prices are based on a FAIR INCOME FOR PRODUCERS principle, i.e. at least 1€ net income. The rest consists of production costs, packing costs, energy, transport and VAT.
- In octobre, the cooperative was told by Natsios international transport company (partner since the beginning) that transport costs would increase by 20% as of January 1st, 2022. All transport companies will do the same, due to fossil fuel skyrocketting prices.
- Ttransport cost are based on the freight weight, and 99% of this weight is fruits.
Meaning, a significant part of the cost will jump up, while the revenue would have stayed the same if prices paid by each participant remained unchanged.
The decision to increase fruit prices
If this decision should the cooperative's call, we think that groups like us taking part in this solidarity imports have their say in the matter, as we're not only talking about a commercial transaction here, we're talkin ACTIVE et VOLUNTARY support to the producers.
So unilateraly, we boosted FRUITS (greek only) prices by 25 CENTS A KILO as of January, to maintain the price structure and fair income for producers. We agreed with Antonis to review all this in a few months to reassess the situation and re-adjust if need be.
Mea culpa we failed making this decision an more horizontal call, our plan in November was to explain this to you in an email, discuss it with you during the distributions, and then to setup an online survey to make the call and implement de raise for the December order, in order to anticipate the cost increase. Exit le plan, we had no time to deal with this, mainly because of the setting up of this platform took time and because of the tricky turns of events during both November and December deliveries... We hope you will understand our approach and the urgency to make the "executive call"as Antonis calls it :)
Solidarity again
That being said, this price increase should not leave anyone on the side of the road, especially those of you who already have budget difficulties, and as a ripple effect reduce the order volumes...
Balance between producers income and participants budget constraints is a delicate one, but we will for sure find solutions if you cannot afford to get your fuits anymore, now orries, Antonis REALLY insists on this. So please please DO NOT HESITATE to contact us!
