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The moment you buy any food, you are not just buying the product itself, but also the values of those who produced and transported it all the way to your table. Various store certificates can tell you more about these values, revealing under what conditions the given food was produced and how it got to you, but also the transparent communication of the seller, which is often even more important. In this regard, we can talk about so-called direct and fair trade. But what is the difference between them? Translated from English: direct and fair trade  Before a product gets directly into your hands, it usually has to go through a long journey through several traders, which increases its price and lowers its quality. At the same time, the consumer has not the slightest chance to find out where the product comes from, whether human rights were violated during its production, or if environmental devastation occurred. That chain between the farmer and the consumer minimizes direct trade.  It is the path we also take at .pepper..field. Thanks to this, we are able to have a perfect overview of the distribution of our pepper; we know exactly from whom each batch comes, and because of that, you know it too. :-) However, building a direct trade business is not easy because few get direct access to primary world commodities as we did after a long journey through Cambodia. Our direct trade is very transparent, which is proven by the fact that through photos and current videos, we involve you in every pepper purchase, which you can participate in remotely with us! You don’t need a certificate for fair trade  Fair trade is above all a certainty. The certainty that the farmers from whom we buy Kampot pepper receive proper compensation for their work, we know the conditions under which the unique Kampot pepper is grown, and we are able to help them continuously improve these conditions. This is called fair trade. Fair trade can be done even without certificates, precisely thanks to direct trade, because you are a direct seller and thus have direct influence on all processes, including whether farmers are paid 100% fair amounts. It is the most wonderful combination because no unnecessary money gets lost anywhere in the chains. And how do we stand with certifications? All the necessary certifications related to Kampot pepper have, of course, been secured from the beginning and we transparently know from Cambodia that they are in order. Other certifications such as fair trade/bio/organic we now secure for all our farmer families thanks to expansion into foreign markets where they are required. These certifications are understandably extremely expensive, so our farmers could not afford them before, but we try to help them with this and take the financial burden on our shoulders. And that is the beauty of .pepper..field’s help! :-)

If you follow us regularly, you have noticed a new article from Khmer Times that we published on our Facebook page, which concerns how important the protected geographical indication of Kampot pepper is and what its impact is in the whole context! We decided to translate this important article for you and explain it further to bring you even closer to the uniqueness of Kampot pepper. What is the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement and how does it work with the protection of origin trademarks The World Intellectual Property Organization, known by the acronym WIPO, is an organization that since 1967 has ensured that the uniqueness of intellectual and physical products of human culture is protected as much as possible. Among these products is Kampot pepper, which is an integral part of Cambodian agricultural culture, cultivated and bred for generations into the finest pepper in the world. Last year, the so-called Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement came into force, which is a treaty managed by the WIPO organization. Simply put, it is an agreement that allows individual international organizations to clearly emphasize the origin and geographical indication of their products. These protective tools help local producers distinguish their products from others that do not reach such quality, make them more visible, and thus help them achieve higher earnings. Kampot pepper received the desired protection One of the first countries to join the entire system of the Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement is Cambodia, which thus gained the opportunity to grant specific geographical indications to some of its products. It is no surprise that this honor was bestowed precisely on Kampot pepper, which can thus present its uniqueness as the first Cambodian product on European territory. Thanks to this, it gains a clearly dominant position among other peppers, which clearly highlights the story not only of the peppercorns growing in one of the most beautiful places in the world but also points to the stories of the people who have devoted themselves to the tradition of its cultivation for centuries. This opens completely new possibilities for Kampot pepper to make itself known worldwide and show people how unique and intense the taste of pepper can truly be. So if you buy Kampot pepper, marks with the letters PGI (Protected Geographical Indication) or GI (Geographical Indication) will indicate to you that it is truly genuine Kampot pepper in every way. How to unmistakably recognize it from others you can read for example in this article.