Synthesis Organics adopts traceability tool Storybird to shine a light on its product origin story

This is the story of a healthier supply chain.

Having grown the Synthesis Organics business with ethics in mind from day one, it has always been important for our team to maintain a supply chain that is rooted in regenerative agriculture principles and to create products that are made using the highest grade certified organic ingredients.

This stems from our mission to be a global healing presence. As an enlightened skincare and wellness company, it is as much about caring for our earth as it is about caring for your skin.

After years of careful research and relationship building, we are proud of our local producer partnerships and want to be able to tell their stories alongside ours, every step of the way, to support Australian producers.

Our producers

They are producers like Myrtle Trading Co, that toil the earth, harvest and distil with loving care in the Northern Rivers using regenerative agriculture principles, resulting in the highest quality native Lemon Myrtle extract in the world that we use in our essential oil synergies.

They are producers like The Paperbark Co, that gently cultivate Fragonia seedlings in a small nursery in the Harvey community, that we use in our elixirs, mists and oil synergies.

Like Koree Herbs in Beechwood, that work seasonally with changing growing conditions to produce beautiful two year old Rosalina plants, harvested and steam distilled before being sent to Victoria for lab testing.

Like Mt Romance in Western Australia, that plants Australian Sandalwood before an annual harvest, steam distillation and treatment of the timber chips which are cold pressed using state-of-the-art pressing technology at their specialist distillery, before the raw oil is vacuum sealed and delivered to us.

We can’t forget the GR Davis Farm in Queenbeyan, that supplies our Eucalyptus Blue Mallee Oil, distilling the fragrant native plant at its new purpose-built facility which includes a tightly controlled in-house oil testing lab to individual customer specifications.

To put these incredible producers on the consumer-facing map, we decided to partner with market linkage platform Producers Market to adopt their traceability tool Storybird, so that we could connect our customers to the real story of our products.

Myrtle Trading Co, a lemon myrtle supplier of Synthesis Organics, planting seedlings on its Northern Rivers farm.

How it works 

By simply scanning a QR code on our packaging, you will be taken to an interactive map that displays information like:

• Product ingredients
• Suppliers’ information
• Suppliers’ farm-to-table process
• Ingredient distances travelled
• Supplier and buyer certifications

Interactive map showing the origins of Synthesis Organics’ Breath of Australia essential oil synergy.

We know that shoppers want to know more about the products they buy, especially being in such a psychological and physical distance from the source.

However, if you were to walk down a supermarket aisle and pick up a product - let’s say a bottle of shampoo - you will struggle to find ample information available on the bottle about where its ingredients were sourced, how it was produced or which company supplied it.

Thanks to Storybird, we are now able to offer this level of transparency in such a simple way and showcase our healthy supply chain.

Our Breath of Australia essential oil synergy features its own Storybird QR code.

Our hope for the future

We hope that, by being one of the first companies in Australia to adopt this technology for consumer supply chain transparency, that other businesses, large and small, will follow suit. 

We dream that every single product in the supermarket and online has a QR code that showcases supply chain traceability, because not only will consumers be armed enough information to make informed purchasing decisions; companies that aren’t comfortable with sharing their current product origin stories will be forced to improve them, less have any questionable practices aired for consumers to judge for themselves.

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire and in the case of consumer products, we have found a technology that can be used for good.

By Theme Rains, Founder and Maker, Synthesis Organics