At Mokosh, we like to deliver good news as much as possible. Today, it’s a bad news story, especially for our customers who have come to know and love our 3 varieties of organic soap.
We heard a few weeks back from our local organic olive oil supplier that they are no longer able to supply the oil we need for soap making. Just as in many parts of the globe, worsening climate conditions have led to a very poor olive harvest for our local supplier, which means there’s no olive oil left for us to make soap.
Globally, there is a shortage of olive oil because of severe drought conditions throughout the Mediterranean for the past 2 years. Spain, the world’s largest producer, is severely affected (read more here), and the result is a massive increase in the price of olive oil globally. In Australia, a combination of insect infestation and poor weather have resulted in a dramatic shortage (read more here). For our local grower, the extreme heat of the last two West Australian summers resulted in fruit drop and a limited harvest.
We quickly contacted a range of certified organic olive suppliers around Australia, and they confirmed they too were unable to supply olive oil for our soap making.
What now?
We looked into sourcing conventional olive oil to make our soap. Although moving to a non certified organic ingredient felt ‘wrong’, we know that some of our customers, particularly those with sensitive skin, are reliant on our soap. Sadly, the price of conventional oil is also too high for us to make soap.
We will be watching the next olive oil harvest closely and hope that future growing seasons yield better harvests for our hard-working growers. We very much hope we will be able to bring our beautiful soaps back.
What does it mean?
We’re so disappointed for all the olive oil growers who have had such a difficult time - they have taken a huge blow. It’s also sad to understand that climate change has already started to limit our ability to grow food, particularly a crop as hardy as the olive.
In the face of this latest more severe stage of climate change, we feel more determined than ever to keep planting trees, supply products made only with ethically sourced ingredients (certified organic, fair trade, palm oil free and cruelty-free), use zero-waste packaging, and keep synthetic ingredients out of our products.
Please do everything you can to live sustainably and help save our planet. A few years back, we wrote an E-book with lots of information on what we all can do to make a difference. Find it here.
We have a limited number of soaps available at the time of writing. Once they're gone, we don't know when or if we will have them available again. We are sorry for any disappointment to our faithful customers.
Marion
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