The Hindu Business Line : Anita Roddick to help L'Oreal source from farmers

Dame Anita Roddick, Founder and Co-Chair of The Body Shop, is to help cosmetic giant L'Oreal to shift to community trading for its purchase programme in the cosmetics business.

In India to launch The Body Shop brand, Ms Roddick told Business Line that she would be spending around 25 days in the year to help L'Oreal embrace the community programme similar to what Body Shop has.

The community trading business would entail L'Oreal purchasing ingredients harvested by family farmers for its products. "Be it honey, aloe, cocoa butter, these products are of incredible quality when procured directly from farms instead of the commodity market. In short, I would do for the cosmetics industry what I could not do when I was in Body Shop,'' she said, elaborating on her vision of the entire international cosmetics industry buying from family farmers and hence participating in developing the social indices as well.

This year, L'Oreal had acquired The Body Shop for over a billion dollars.

Ms Roddick is known for her `commerce with a conscience' philosophy and has been the icon of ethical business practices for three decades. When in India a few years ago, Ms Roddick had expressed a desire to bring the Body Shop brand to the country only when it could partner with community programmes as well.

Commenting on the franchisee that will take the Body Shop brand forward here, she said she felt a great chemistry with them and was happy that they were going to give away one per cent of their sales to selected NGOs working in development projects in the country.

Official launch

At a press conference earlier in the day, Ms Roddick officially launched The Body Shop through a tie up with Planet Retail Pvt Ltd, which will be its master franchisee in the country.

The first Body Shop store opened in Mumbai in June 2006. Currently, there are five stores in the country. Planet Retail will be franchising The Body Shop through another entity, Quest Retail Pvt Ltd.

"The Body Shop has enjoyed a good relationship with India for nearly 20 years since we launched our community trade programme in 1987 with Teddy Exports in Tamil Nadu. I am ecstatic that after nearly 20 years of trading relationships and community involvement in India, we have finally opened The Body Shop stores here, " she said.

Expansion

Mr Arun Bhardwaj, Managing Director, Quest Retail Pvt Ltd, said, "We plan to open 50 stores within the next three years. We are also committed to carrying out the strong social and environmental beliefs of The Body Shop in our daily work.''

About the performance of the existing five operational stores in India, Mr Bhardwaj said, "In the last five months of business, our sales have totally exceeded expectations, and feedback from our customers have been very positive."

The Body Shop, which recently celebrated its 30th year of existence, had clocked a turnover of £485.8 million in 2005-06, and has also received several awards over years for its out-of-the-box communication tactics.

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