Thisgaard and Sandberg form ethical agency

Michael Eaton

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Former Toms Confectionery executives form Gaia Trade, focusing on “Brands for Good” from the confectionery, fine food and wine categories

Two former Toms Confectionery executives, export & travel-retail sales director Anette Thisgaard and international marketing manager Irina Sandberg, have formed a specialist food agency to operate in the Nordic region.

Gaia Trade will provide a sales and marketing service for manufacturers at what Sandberg described as the “premium end” of the confectionery, fine food and wine category, and will focus specifically on “healthier” products.

“Organic, pure and natural products are often healthier and taste better,” claimed Sandberg. “Packaging and communication-wise they must endorse and attract the premium market segment.”

Gaia Trade is also displaying a social and political conscience. Sandberg and Thisgaard are convinced that travellers can–and will want to–make a difference by helping some of the world’s poorer nations with their purchases if given the opportunity.

Pointing out that key raw materials such as cocoa and coffee are often harvested in many of the world’s poorest regions, Sandberg said that international travellers “connect” with these countries.

“Travel-retail is the perfect place in which to give consumers greater choice, which hopefully is ‘better’ for the world, either environmentally, ethically or by the contribution we can offer with our purchasing power,” she added.

Both Thisgaard and Sandberg have an extensive network of retail contacts in the Nordic travel-retail market, and Sandberg pointed out that the region is already very health- and environment-conscious. “Today's travellers seek more and more gift options and products that they don't necessarily find elsewhere. We can see a trend in local speciality stores and cafes of, for example, the growth of high-quality chocolates–especially in Sweden. But we are lacking this in travel-retail.”

Gaia Trade, which is based in Copenhagen, already has a solid client base. A group of premium and “healthy” chocolate brands includes: Italian company Amedei, which has won the London Chocolate Academy’s World's Best Dark Chocolate award; NewTree from Belgium, which has achieved duty-free listings for its chocolates with herbs/plants recipes; Santander, a Fair Trade Colombian chocolate; Vintage Plantations, the first chocolate certified by the Rainforest Alliance; and Turin liqueur-based pralines with 100% Criollo beans.

In the fine food category, Gaia Trade will represent the Prince of Wales’s Duchy Originals organic products, including chocolate truffles; organic Robert's Coffee; organic Puroast low acid coffee; Becks pure cocoa; and Firefly tonics. Sandberg explained that biodynamic wines are gaining wider acceptance and Gaia Trade is working with Nicolas Joly of France, Eben Sadie of South Africa and Peter Sisseck, a Dane now in Spain.