When Scott and Missy Tannen were putting the final touches on their home renovation in Summit, New Jersey, a few years ago, they embarked on a seemingly pedestrian chore: choosing sheets for their new king bed.
Missy Tannen set off to the mall in search of quality bedding, but quickly fell down a rabbit hole. Where were the sheets made? Were the cotton farmers well-compensated? Were the factory workers well-treated?
With consumers increasingly concerned about such matters, Missy Tannen expected sales associates at stores like Bloomingdale’s and Bed Bath & Beyond to be fluent in answering such queries.
Illustration: Mountain People
Instead, she said: “When we started looking for information at the retail level, we realized that no one knew what they were talking about.”
Nearly five years later, the Tannens’ quest for answers has made them unlikely entrepreneurs in the luxury bedding industry. They are partners in a three-year-old company, Boll & Branch, that they say is on track to sell US$40 million worth of sheets and towels this year and is profitable.
In building Boll & Branch, the Tannens have tried to create a supply chain that improves the livelihoods of farmers and factory workers in India. They also have followed the lead of recent consumer goods companies like the eyeglasses maker Warby Parker and the mattress maker Casper by going all in on e-commerce.
Scott Tannen, 38, previously founded a videogame company and worked in the marketing departments of Wrigley and Kraft. Missy Tannen, 39, was a third-grade teacher who had become a full-time mother. However, once they began thinking about where their sheets came from, the problem nagged at them, provoking radical career changes.
In 2013, they decided to take a gamble and use the profits Scott Tannen had made from the sale of his videogame company to start Boll & Branch. Their goal was to make high-end sheets while using good farming and labor practices. Doing so would put them on the moral high ground. Just as important, it would make Boll & Branch stand out in a crowded marketplace. (Other companies, including Parachute, also sell bedding directly to consumers, and some boast that they follow socially responsible practices.)
The Tannens began buying thousands of dollars’ worth of sheets to examine different weaves and spent their spare time researching the cotton industry. The more they learned, the less they liked what they found.
In India, one of the largest cotton and garment producers, many farmers are dependent on genetically modified crops. Those seeds and the necessary pesticides may increase yields, but they also cost the farmers money, further eroding their slim profits.
It does not get much better further along the supply chain. According to a recent report by the Center for Research on Multinational Corporations, a Dutch nonprofit organization, and the India Committee of the Netherlands, forced labor, child labor and poor working conditions are common in Indian garment factories.
If the Tannens were going to create a high-minded bedding company, they would have to do better than the status quo.
The first step was to find a reliable source of organic cotton. Besides being more expensive for farmers, conventional cotton farming methods — particularly the use of pesticides — may be taking a toll on the health of field workers.
After some searching, the Tannens found Chetna Organic, a nonprofit organization that works with cotton farmers in central and southern India. The Chetna members grow their crops without genetically modified seeds or pesticides, and they use significantly less water than conventional farmers. Chetna is certified by Fair Trade USA, the Global Organic Textile Standard and Fairtrade International, and it maintains stringent internal controls.
The Tannens had already settled on using organic cotton when a tragedy prompted them to raise their sights still higher. In April 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factory in Bangladesh collapsed, killing more than 1,100 people. That disaster, and others in recent years, prompted many big retailers to pay closer attention to conditions in garment factories. The Tannens hopped on that bandwagon, resolving to carefully scrutinize their factories, too.
They opted for Rajlakshmi Cotton Mills, an organic and Fair Trade certified textile factory in Kolkata, India, with which Chetna has a partnership.
The Tannens’ approach has its costs. Scott Tannen estimates that using organic cotton and Fair Trade labor doubles those expenses, and so far the demand for organic sheets is not great in the US. However, they have resolved to press on.
Nicole Bassett, former director of sustainability at Prana and former manager of social responsibility at another apparel company, Patagonia, said Boll & Branch had a leg up on many other retailers.
“People are creating brands all the time these days,” she said. “But they asked if there was a better way to do this. At Prana, we were taking years to convert these supply chains. They got to start from the beginning.”
In May 2013, the Tannens placed their first order, for 1,500 sets of ivory and white sheets. The ivory sheets arrived with a green hue. However, after eliminating such kinks, Boll & Branch sold its first sheets in January 2014 and it has been growing fast since. Sales were about US$1.7 million that year and jumped to US$13.5 million last year, the Tannens said. This year, they expect sales should roughly triple.
For Chetna, Boll & Branch was a godsend. Previously, demand for organic cotton was spotty at best.
“Cotton is a commodity at the end of the day,” said Arun Chandra Ambatipudi, one of the founders of Chetna. “If you don’t show access to markets, interest will wane.”
Boll & Branch now buys more than half the organic cotton Chetna’s 15,000 farmers produce, about 1,200 tonnes this year. And because Boll & Branch will need the cotton to keep coming, it has begun giving Chetna farmers cash advances, injecting a welcome degree of financial stability into an often volatile occupation.
Although it has accepted higher costs for materials and labor, the company has found ways to increase margins. Instead of selling at wholesale prices to retailers, Boll & Branch primarily advertises online and sells directly through its own Web site.
On its own, Boll & Branch will not solve the plight of Indian farmers. Compared with the sales of the big wholesalers of sheets, the company’s sales remain a rounding error. Even so, Scott Tannen contends it is only a matter of time before many more consumers start expecting the cotton in their sheets, towels and even clothes to be organic and ethically sourced.
“There’s a change in consciousness among some consumer segments,” Scott Tannen said. “They’re thinking about the people on the other side of the product.”
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