FAQs

The Tree Crowd is not a charity. We are a Social Enterprise based in the UK. We chose to make The Tree Crowd a social enterprise to create a self-sustaining business model to enable us to re-invest in the business and scale our impact. This ensures we do not rely on external grant financing to operate. This also means we can raise investor capital to scale our impact rapidly.

Our mission to rewind deforestation and improve the livelihoods of small-scale farmers in Africa. We do this through an innovative and sustainable model: planting tree crops, supporting ethical food supply chains, and delivering goods directly to our customers.

Approximately 70% of your purchase goes directly to plant tree crops and market access for farmers. This includes planting of high value tree crops (including mortality rate coverage and provision of native species and/or food crops), cost of the product and packaging, on-the-ground monitoring of trees and reporting and helping us spread the word. As we are a social enterprise and not a charity, a reasonable target margin of approximately 30% is required for us to be financially sustainable, cover team costs, not rely on solely grant financing and attract impact investors to help us scale our social and environmental impact

Along with your bundle of treats, we’ll send you (or your chosen recipient) a tree certificate (printed on eco-friendly paper with eco-friendly inks, of course). This gives you the location of your tree and provides you with a link to exclusive content from the farm, so you’ll see the impact of your purchase. Your certificate also lets you know your The Tree Crowd member discount code for The Food Shop.

Your purchase funds the nurture of tree seedlings which are donated to small-scale farmers in Tanzania and Kenya. The trees are sponsored by you and owned by the farmers. By growing the trees, the farmers are restoring deforested land. And eventually, they’ll harvest the fruits and make an income from them. High value export crops will substantially improve their income profile coupled with your support to access the market - this will mitigate further deforestation as our mission is to leverage their existing land-holdings to mitigate further deforestation.

We don’t own any land. Most of the agriculture land in Africa is owned by small-scale farmers and our approach is to empower them to use their land. When it comes to combatting climate change, this is a more sustainable than planting trees in large-scale plantations.

Our nursery partners all have great track records when it comes to growing high quality seedlings.

Plus we work with partners who provide knowledge for farmers on how to care for their trees in the early years where mortality rates are highest. We do anticipate a. mortality rate of 5-10% and take this into consideration during the design of our tree planting programme for every season. If there has been a substantial event that causes high mortality, we will work with our partners to re-plant the trees alongside small-sale farmers.

We support organic agriculture because it best supports the soil and the environment. It relies on biological inputs such as local manure and bio pesticides. In fact, these low cost, traditional methods dominate among Africa’s small-scale farmers who can’t afford expensive fertilisers and chemicals. Some farms are certified organic for certain produce such as cacao. But other can’t afford the certification even though they follow the same principles.

The trees you sponsor may already exist, or will be growing in a nursery to be planted in an upcoming planting season. You can find out which on your tree certificate. The farmers you are supporting plant their tree seedlings during rainy seasons. In Tanzania, that means from October to February, or during the small rains in April and May.

Yes, the majority of our products are sourced from the same region as our tree planting projects. There may be variations due to seasonality and it may also depend on the farmer groups, co-operatives and unions we are working with. We believe that by supporting single origin products from the farmer region, it benefits all farmers through a market pull and economies of scale. Tree crops can take a while to grow and mature and we want to start building the market for farmers straight away that benefits your adopted trees when they reach maturity for harvest.

This depends on the crop. Avocado trees reach maturity in 5-6 years whereas coffee trees will be much sooner. Fruit and nut trees are fantastic because they will last for years, improving livelihoods for generations while rewinding deforestation at the same time.

Absolutely! Sustainability is part of our DNA. All our packaging is either recyclable or biodegradable. Our mailer boxes are made with recycled cardboard that is FSC certified and the outer mailer bags are biodegradable. Our food packaging for coffee, chocolate and spices are all recyclable. The tree certificate that comes with your purchase is eco-friendly and made from 100% genuine de-inked postconsumer waste with eco-friendly inks. Our packaging suppliers support tree planting activities too.

Yes, we can send you the tree certificate by email. Simply let us know in your order or email us at impact@thetreecrowd.com

Our chocolate, Zanzibar spices and organic avocado oil are certified organic. The Kilimanjaro coffee is organically grown by small-holder farmers and our ambition is to get this organically certified. Certification is expensive for individual farmers, so it depends on the scale of the industry, the crop and the specific supply-chain for the product. Our coffee unions and co-operative are simply too small to get certified, even though we know that the farmers are growing it organically. Sometimes, we may be able to get organic certified coffee based on a particular harvest. One of our aims at The Tree Crowd is to support farmers in becoming certified for all our products as we scale up. This can be achieved through scaling our market access for single origin products.

If your order is incorrect or damaged, let us know at impact@thetreecrowd.com and we will sort this out for you as soon as we can. Please ensure to include your order number, a description of your problem and photos if needed. You will need to return the full gift box within 14 days. We can’t provide refunds for perishable food items unless they are damaged or faulty. Unfortunately due to the impact nature of the business model, we will still honour the tree planting from any purchase returned to maximise the impact for our farmers.

Yes, we can ship anywhere in the UK via Royal Mail. Delivery times are 2-4 business days from placing an order. All delivered are recorded and tracked.

Unfortunately, due to Brexit we are unable to deliver internationally at this stage. However, we are working on it. If you have a custom / wholesale order request for international destination, please do email us at impact@thetreecrowd.com and we will check if we are able to accommodate.

• Standard tree adoption treat bundle: £3.95

• Single / Multiple items from The Food Shop: £3.95

Our shipping will be via Royal Mail. If you're not home when delivery is attempted, you'll get a note through the door and you can rearrange.