Advancing Fair Wages in Sri Lanka's Tea Sector — A Conversation with Ahmad Tea’s Head of Sustainability

So we pivoted. We started asking: What if that money actually went into uplifting wages? From there, we began exploring mechanisms to make that happen — how to work with our suppliers, how to build it into our contractual relationships, and how to make it practical. We launched a pilot a few years ago, Hand Picked Profit Shared, and it’s gained traction more quickly than we expected. Suppliers have received it very positively.

In parallel, there’s also been this shift in corporate law — the CSDDD. It doesn’t spell out that companies must close living-wage gaps, but the idea of shared responsibility in supply chains is clear. When you conduct a human rights impact assessment, living wage becomes a primary concern. Companies need to think about how they contribute to closing that gap. So our initiative felt aligned with where global business expectations are heading, even though the legislation doesn’t yet affect companies our size. It gave us more motivation to keep going.

There is a lot of burden on suppliers. As buyers we demand that they be compliant to yet another benchmark or standard. The suppliers tell brands: You want us to be perfect on human rights and sustainability, but you’re not willing to share the cost, either through increasing prices or adding a premium. So our Handpicked Profit Shared initiative is really us signalling that we’re willing to take some responsibility. Even though the relationship with workers is indirect, the reality is we would not have any tea without their hard work. This is our attempt to reflect that in a meaningful way."

"It’s a model linked to our sourcing standards — our Ahmad Tea Green Standard. In a very simple sense, it’s built on three pillars: quality, social responsibility and ecosystem management.

First, quality is essential, because the teas we source are hand-picked and crafted with real expertise. 

Second, transparency on human rights is crucial. We ask suppliers to be honest with us about labour issues — and that honesty is rewarded. Problems do happen, but we need visibility. We want to understand what safeguarding is in place, what remedial actions are being taken, and have an open dialogue. For us, that dialogue matters more than having everything look perfect.

The third pillar, which we’re still developing, is ecosystem management. So this includes reductions in chemical use, biodiversity protection, deforestation standards, solar panels — all of that. Again, it’s a conversation, not a top-down checklist. We’re not imposing standards; we’re asking suppliers to tell us what they’re already doing.

Each year we look back at our highest-volume suppliers who meet these criteria. Those suppliers then qualify for Handpicked Profit Shared, and a proportion of our profit is allocated directly to their tea workers. For example, a producer might tell us they have 800 tea workers on the permanent payroll. They share transparent proof of how payments will go into workers’ bank accounts, and we disburse the funds accordingly. It’s quite a straightforward mechanism — and intentionally so."

"We’ve been working in parallel across India, Kenya, and Sri Lanka, but Sri Lanka has undoubtedly been the most challenging simply because the system is still very cash-based. That makes transparency and verification more difficult. One of the most helpful partnerships we had early on was with Bogawantalawa Tea Estates. They were very open to piloting the approach with us and working with the IDH salary matrix for living wage, which gave us the visibility we needed to understand the living-wage gap clearly and to see how our model could function in a cash-heavy environment.

The pilot went genuinely well, and that success encouraged us to share those learnings with our other Sri Lankan suppliers. In fact, one of the main reasons for my visit now is to organise our first cross-learning session so that our other suppliers can see how Bogawantalawa applied the IDH matrix in a practical and culturally appropriate way. It’s really about building confidence across the supply base that this can work, even with the constraints of a cash-based system.

By comparison, India and Kenya have been smoother because banking systems are already in place. There, the process becomes more of an accounting check. But ultimately, this relies on long-term trust. We’ve worked with many of our suppliers for 10 or 20 years, and they’ve shared concerns about fairness, worker selection, and local norms. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, but the core principle remains the same: workers who hand-pluck the teas that go into our blends should have both visibility and a financial reward that reflects their contribution."