This charter is addressed to primary suppliers who are part of the TEIKEI network or wish to become part of it.
Primary suppliers play a special role in the network. They are positioned at a central interface between agricultural production, product availability, supply logistics, and the transfer into community-supported structures.
They are not to be understood simply as a classic trade level. In the TEIKEI context, primary suppliers are part of a transparent, responsible, and relationship-oriented supply structure. Their task is not to make origins invisible or to decouple products from their real conditions, but to contribute to ensuring that supply can be organized in a traceable, sustainable, and aligned manner with the network's goals.
This charter describes the shared basic understanding for this role. It defines the responsibility that primary suppliers bear and the standards by which their collaboration is oriented.
This charter does not stand alone.
It is based on the TEIKEI Manifesto 2030 and the ten TEIKEI principles.
The TEIKEI Manifesto 2030 describes the network's long-term orientation. This includes in particular:
The ten TEIKEI principles form the shared foundation for collaboration, supply, and development across the entire network. These include:
This charter translates this shared foundation into the concrete practice of the respective role within the network.
This means:
The structures, decisions, and processes described here must not be considered or implemented in isolation from the ecological, social, and community goals of the TEIKEI Manifesto or the ten TEIKEI principles.
Even where a role is not directly located in agricultural production, it remains part of a system built on ecological responsibility, regenerative practices, and community-supported supply.
This results in:
The roles, tasks, and attitudes described in this charter can only be fully understood in the context of this shared foundation.
Therefore:
The TEIKEI Manifesto 2030 and the ten TEIKEI principles are not an optional background but a shared foundation that must be read, understood, and supported in practice by all participants.
Primary suppliers are responsible for ensuring that products are made available, accessible, and transferable in a manner consistent with origin, quality, network logic, and transparency.
This means:
A central standard for primary suppliers in the TEIKEI network is dual traceability and transparency.
This means:
In the TEIKEI context, dual traceability and transparency do not merely mean batch management or technical documentation. They mean mutual visibility of origin and transfer within the network.
A central standard for primary suppliers is the traceable origin of products.
Therefore:
For consumers and participating communities, this means:
For farms, this means:
Primary suppliers thus bear responsibility for ensuring that supply does not become a one-way street of information.
Primary suppliers share responsibility for ensuring that quality is understood not only in a technical sense but also in its substantive context.
This includes:
In the TEIKEI context, quality is always also a question of transparency, context, and responsible transfer.
Primary suppliers should make their role in value creation traceable.
This means:
Transparency in pricing and performance is a prerequisite for maintaining trust, fairness, and shared learning capacity.
In the TEIKEI network, primary suppliers do not stand between farms and communities to replace this relationship but to support it in a sustainable way in certain contexts.
Therefore:
Primary suppliers are not only there to ensure that products are available.
They also bear responsibility for how availability is organized.
This includes:
Primary suppliers are part of a learning network.
Therefore, their role also includes:
The goal of this charter is to make primary suppliers visible as responsible, traceable, and network-compatible roles within the TEIKEI context.
It provides guidance on how this role can be designed to strengthen origin, quality, transparency, and fair collaboration.
A special core of this role is dual traceability and transparency: farms should be able to trace where their products end up, and consumers as well as communities should be able to trace products back to the farm.
Thus, primary suppliers contribute to ensuring that supply does not arise from decoupling, lack of transparency, or mere availability but from responsibility, clarity, and shared sustainability.
By signing this charter, the undersigned person confirms that this charter has been read, understood, and will be supported in practical implementation.
The signature expresses the willingness to act in the TEIKEI network in accordance with the principles, responsibilities, and forms of collaboration described here and to further develop this practice together with the other participants in the network.
This confirmation does not replace further agreements if these are necessary but documents the shared commitment to this charter as a binding foundation for collaboration.
Company Name:
Name of Responsible Person:
Role / Function:
Location:
Date:
Signature:
If relevant, additional agreements, role descriptions, or operational arrangements can be documented separately and attached to this charter.
Future adjustments to this charter should be made transparently and—where possible—in dialogue with the affected participants in the network.
One level up: Manifesto and Charter at TEIKEI
Author: Felix Schröder, with assistance from AI (ChatGPT)
Creation: written by Felix Schröder › formatted in Markdown by ChatGPT › published by Felix Schröder › layout adjusted by Claude
Created: 2026-03-18 · Last updated: 2026-10-11 · Questions or feedback? support@teikei.us