Aggie aims to share the stories of the 570 million smallholder farmers around the world by connecting them to new markets. Just under 80% of the world’s food is grown by these smallholder farmers living in poverty, and so, Aggie aims to connect these producers to profitable markets.
We run Aggie Global (in Fiji) and Aggie Gifts (in Aus) to economically empower our farmers and suppliers in our network to combat poverty, food insecurity and inequalities in the food supply chain.
Aggie operates in both Fiji and Australia.
In 2018, Zoe and Lisa moved to Fiji to understand the challenges farmers were facing when it came to food insecurity and poverty. Since then, Aggie developed Fiji’s first online marketplace which empowers farmers to sell their produce online. In Fiji, we also host workshops to train our farmers in sustainable farming practices or teach them about up and coming market trends, so they can diversify production to meet market needs. Through this work, some of our farmers recorded a 5 times increase in income compare to the national average.
In Australia, we operate under Aggie Gifts work closely with small Aussie businesses and Indigenous suppliers, to help their businesses grow and flourish. We only started Aggie Gifts in 2020, so things are still early days, but with further funding and growth, we aim to replicate the Fijian model so we can train Indigenous community members in entrepreneurship so they can use their traditional knowledge to create unique bushfood products. Currently, only 1% of commerically available bushfoods are being supplied by Indigenous Australians! This is why we wish to empower these suppliers, to bring their voice back into theirindustry.
Through our work we are mindful of protecting our Indigenous suppliers rights by accrediting them and their work as much as possible, as previously, the commercialisation of the bushfood sector has taken advantage of Indigenous knowledge. It is something we are mindful of and strive to improve with every interaction with our suppliers. We are continuously learning and improving, to better the bushfood industry and support Indigenous Communities as best we can (through business!).
For every $1 spentat Aggie Gifts, up to 70c goes back to our all Aussie suppliers.
In just 18monthsAggie Global paid over $60K back to suppliers (as of Sept 2021).
As of September 2021, 35% ofall of our suppliers are Indigenous.
For our 2021 Christmas gift boxes, over 60% of products are Indigenous sourced.
100% of Aggie's packaging is environmentally friendly.
We use compostable and recyclable packaging where possible.
We are Social Traders certified, verifies our positive social impact.
Social Traders connects us to buyers to help in their social procurement goals.
Other than purchasing a gift box through Aggie, you can support our work by Subscribing to our monthly subscription for Impact on StartSomeGood's website. Here you will see Aggie's recurring Crowdfunding campaign, where every month you can contribute as little as $5 to our community projects.
A lot of our impact is focused in Fiji at this time, simply because it is more established. BUT as our subscriber list grows, we can reinvest this income into our Australian projects to support Indigenous suppliers further. We have many ideas and potential projects we want to implement to support our Indigenous Community more holistically, however until we have enough funds and traction, we cannot implement these just yet. So stay tuned.
The best way to see what we are doing in the communities we work with, is by following us on social media or subscribing to our Crowdfunding Campaign to receive quarterly impact reports. See links below:
Crowdfunding Campaign
On these social media pages, we will also share our recent blogs, so if we have a major win, we will share these over social media.