Organic Latex Plantations -

Since Theptex started producing latex cores in 2015, several of our customers indicated their interest to use latex harvested from organic rubber plantations.

We were however not able to find any certified organic plantations in Thailand. This is actually rather surprising as Thailand is number 1 in Natural Rubber Net Production in the world.

So, our search continued. We were able to identify a handful of plantations working organically but had not yet met all the criteria to receive an official certification. Some coaching of the farmers was still required so small workstations were set up for interested farmers and a framework was outlined for them to work truly organically with the necessary paper trail from the certifier.

Theptex also helped the farmers to negotiate a cheaper purchase price of organic fertiliser. An additional incentive for the farmers is that we pay them a much higher price for their latex than the official price quoted by Songkhla Rubber Exchange.

Hence the project became a sort of a Corporate Social Responsibility venture that helped the rubber farmers and their families in adverse times of low rubber prices.

In 2019, after 3 years of trial and some errors, all the hard work finally paid off. Theptex and the farmers were awarded the IFOAM and EU Organic label for latex milk harvested from organic rubber plantations.

^{The farmer family in front of a Theptex work station, used to store tools for latex harvesting and TPI Organic fertiliser.}

Until today Theptex sponsors these organic rubber plantations, making sure the farmers continue to meet the strict criteria for organic crop cultivation as outlined by IFOAM.

The International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) accreditation is awarded by the certifying body Organic Agriculture Certification Thailand (ACT).

For more information about IFOAM and its sustainable organic farming standards, click here. For the full list of IFOAM organic operators (certified by ACT), click here, and search for ‘Theptex’ (code: 075760 OC).

The IFOAM accreditation is officially recognised by the certifying body Control Union as part of the Global Organic Latex Standard (GOLS) for latex harvested from organic rubber plantations. Theptex also holds the ECO-Institut-label which GOLS accepts as minimum organic standard for the finished product (non-toxic latex foam with minimum 95% natural latex). See GOLS Version 3.0.