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Our Why
Kanekta is vision
oriented, together as a team we are a combination of blue-sky dreamers and
critical thinkers who believe in the power of conscious purchasing. Every
purchase whether it be food, household items or luxury goods represents what we
as consumers want. These wants are determined by two key factors, preference
and availability. However when the majority of goods available for purchase
support environmental destruction and poor labour conditions, it is us who then
become responsible for contributing to the exploitation of workers in
developing nations, preventing them and their families from escaping the cycle
of poverty. Our vision is to redefine consumerism through the power of
relationship building, the connection between influential retailers, social
enterprises/ artisans and consumers can transform current purchasing patterns
and move the world towards a more conscious approach to how we evaluate what we
choose to spend our hard earned dollars on. Kanekta’s vision is to accelerate
and intensify this movement by taking advantage of the emerging trend that is
social purchasing.
What We Do
We provide two main services, the first being an online component
that will take the form of an e-commerce platform with payment gateways. This
will act as an easy tool for individual buyers to navigate where to buy
ethically-sourced products. This enforces our mission of increasing
accessibility through a consolidated space for consumers to purchase all their
everyday needs.
The second is an in-store component, we
want large retailers to be able to access a pool of different ethically-sourced
products made from around the globe to promote a better, more socially-minded
type of consumerism. This simultaneously supports the growth of artisanal
producers and scalable social enterprises. This channel will allow Kanekta to
achieve its central mission by leveraging its relationships with producers and
act as an ambassador that can champion them in the Canadian market.
By exposing everyday consumers to products that
commemorate the conscious efforts of producers, we are slowly shifting the
movement to support social purchasing and essentially creating a new norm of
consumer behaviour. The heart of our mission is to influence an alternative procurement structure in
which retailers place more emphasis on supporting ethically sourced products because
it is what their customers demand.
The Change Desired
1) Change in Awareness- An awakening towards current unethical procurement practices associated with large scale retailers.
2) Change in Consumer Behaviour- Redirecting the purchasing power of consumers to support ethically sourced products.
3) Change in Market Offering- Adding pressures for businesses to engage in ethical production and conscious procurement.