JTS recognised by the Social Enterprise World Forum

Earlier this month the Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF) officially recognised JTS as a social enterprise.  JTS has long considered itself a social enterprise and acted as such. However, the scrutiny and approval of a respected third party gives consumers added confidence in the company’s claims.

The verification criteria used by SEWF covered the following areas of mission and governance:

1. Mission: the social enterprise has a clearly stated primary social or environmental mission.
2. Ethics: the social enterprise is transparent about and accountable to its mission and aspires to the highest ethical business standards in all internal and external dealings.
3. Income: the social enterprise generates the majority (51% or more) of its operating income from trade, the sale of products and services, including grants for product outputs or services.
4. Surplus: the social enterprise reinvests the majority (51% or more) of its surpluses in pursuit of the mission.
5. Ownership: the social enterprise is controlled in the interests of the stated mission, not individually controlled.
6. Asset Lock: the social enterprise has provisions in place to ensure that if the organisation is dissolved, disposed of or converted, all residual assets will be distributed in line with the stated mission.

It is exciting to have this additional recognition which builds on our World Fair Trade Organization Guaranteed Member status. We really hope this recognition will help us support our producer partners through increasing the sales of their wonderful food products.