Paruva Kaalam Fair-Trade Soap: Project Capture
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Transcript of Paruva Kaalam Fair-Trade Soap: Project Capture
PARUVA KAALAM FAIR TRADE SOAP PROJECT
THE
Project OverviewTHE PROBLEMIn the semi-arid regions of India, agriculture provides limited employment opportunities and other sustainable alternatives must be found to support rural populations.
THE SOLUTIONOur 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.
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PartnerODAM is a south Indian organization that has provided children’s education, women’s empowerment, environmental awareness, and agricultural development services in Tamil Nadu, India since 1996.
Farmers Coop Bio-diesel Facility Soap Facility
Bio-gas
Bio-diesel
Glycerin
Seeds
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.
ODAM’s Bio-Diesel Ecosystem:
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
Soap MakingThe 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.
Soap Making
DID YOU KNOW?
At a basic level, soap-making is easy. You can
do it at home.
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Market AuditWe 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.
Market Audit
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
Custom Iconography: How can we incorporate iconography that tells the products story?
Gourmet Ingredients: Are there ingredients that help us tell our story?
Made by People: What is our tone of voice?
Source Story: What best represents our “Source Story”?
Celebrate the Product: How important is the soap itself as part of the story?
Handmade Designs: How handmade should it feel?
Most importantly, the audit asked us to consider several questions as we developed the soap:
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BUILD A BAR
Community BrainstormTo 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.
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
Community Brainstorm
DID YOU KNOW?
This brainstorm was when we first
defined the concept of embedded design!
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Brand DevelopmentOur 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.
Brand Development
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
InsightsBE 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.
Insights
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Package DesignWith 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.
Package Design
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!
The Erikoodu Briquette Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
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.
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DID YOU KNOW?
Everyone got to weigh in on the package
design.
KatePitchai
MuniandiJeyaraj
Illavarsu
ElangoAJ
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
After choosing the final direction we worked closely with the printer to understand what we could accomplish at his shop within our cost requirements.
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Scent ResearchWe needed to match relevant fragrances to the different soaps in Paruva Kaalam’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 testing—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 Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
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.
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Process DesignIt 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.
Process Design
DID YOU KNOW?
Three dimensional computer renderings were very helpful for communicating with
local carpenters.The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
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.
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The process also involved embossing the soaps with the Paruva Kaalam logo, polishing, and packaging the finished product.
Pour it. Cut it.
Stamp it.
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
Wrap it.
Glue it. Pack it.
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Final ProductThe finished product seamlessly combined the senses of four Indian seasons, connecting US consumers to a small community thousands of miles away.
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
The Erikoodu Briquette Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
Business DevelopmentMaking soap wasn’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.
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
We supported this process through developing detailed operations plans, marketing materials, and business forms.
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DID YOU KNOW?
ODAM worked with their SHGs to find
women that couldn’t work in agriculture,
but were a good fit for soap making jobs.
Training WorkersWe worked closely with ODAM’s staff to develop the Paruva Kaalam business. They, in turn, trained and hired four women to work on the project.
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
US SalesIn 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.
DID YOU KNOW?
The first store to carry our soap was Park & Vine in Cincinnati.
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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 women’s empowerment.
The Paruva Kaalam Fair Trade Soap Project: Copyright 2013: Design Impact
TeamDESIGN IMPACT:Kate Hanisian, Ramsey Ford, Paul Long, Kitu Jhaveri, Daniel Timothy Edmundson
KALEIDOSCOPE:Chelsea McLemore, Michael Roller, Lisa Barlow
ODAM: J. Elango, Usha N., J. Illavarsu, Raja Sekar
ContactRAMSEY FORDDesign DirectorDesign [email protected]
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