Coco Flora

We work out of Karappadi in Poosaraipatti. It’s a rural area where there are lots of coconut trees all around. That’s where we get our raw materials for the coir and garden products we make. The air here usually smells like wet husks and earth. We have a large open area where we process the fiber and let it dry. It’s physical work and the sun can be quite hot in the afternoons. We have a group of local workers from the village who have been with us for a long time. They know exactly how to handle the material without wasting any. We make stuff like coir mats, pith blocks, and other garden supplies that people use for their plants. Everything is very hands-on here. We don't use a lot of high-tech machinery; it’s more about the traditional ways of doing things by hand. The trucks come in once or twice a week to pick up the finished goods and take them to the city. We spend a lot of time outdoors checking the stock. Sometimes the monsoon rain slows us down because we can’t dry the fiber properly. In the evenings, things quiet down and we finish up the paperwork in the small office shed. It’s a simple life here in the village and we focus on the raw quality of what we produce.