When I got up on the brand new year of 2010, our Tata Jagriti Yatra had reached Bangalore. Our next destination was Mother Earth, a retail chain dealing in rural handicrafts. It was quite a task for 400 yatris to fit into Mother Earth’s retail outlet. After all of us were settled, Neelam Chibber, Founder-Director of Mother Earth, started off the story of her organization, which was founded in the year 1994 as a for-profit organization. However, through the years, they shifted their focus to not-for-profit entrepreneurship. They started working with the government to train rural artisans, who in turn procured goods. Thus, Mother Earth (the brand name under which Industree Craft Foundation sells its products), as it is today, was born in the year 2000.
What struck me most of the business model, was that the real owners of the products were artisans themselves. The retail chain just handles the distribution and selling part of the business. 97% of their rural artisans comprises of women, who are organized into self help groups with the help of local NGOs. They are the real owners. These women buy the raw materials, make the products and send it to Mother earth for selling. I thought it was very smart of Mother Earth to do away with most of the problems of raw material procurement and labour issues. Mother Earth just has to charge exorbitant amount of distribution fees to make money. But, Chibber also added that the rural artisans are given 14% mutually beneficial shares. This way the artisans have ownership at the brand level where the real wealth creation takes place. She informed us that with every Rs. 100 increase in profit, artisans earned Rs. 56.
Currently, Future Group owns 43% of the brand. Mother Earth plans to expand their business into tier two cities in the near future. And one more thing to say before I end the post, excessive amount of shopping followed the lecture! I guess New Years was as lucky for us as them…
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