Quality: Manufacture

Fair trade (with suppliers and customers)

Manufacturing taking the environment and social acceptance into account

Supporting traditional craftwork and securing jobs

Thanks to the good experiences we have made, and despite many prejudices, we have decided to select India as a production country for our HOPPEDIZ® Baby Slings.

Our partner, whom we knew already from the time "before" HOPPEDIZ®, has been running this family company for several generations. He produces various hand-woven products and exports the majority to Europe and Germany.

We are actively supporting the tradition of craft weaving in India with the production of our baby slings there. We would like to give the people, in whose life craftsmanship plays a central role, secure and humane work for the coming years and to guarantee their children a good and social environment through the production of our baby slings.
The decades of experience gained by our partner and his employees is mirrored in the weaving they produce and the quality of the yarn used. It goes without saying that our baby slings are manufactured without child labour. Since we are parents ourselves, we consider it to be extremely important to protect children from child labour.

Weaving using a manual loom requires years of practice and experience on the part of the weaver and is impossible for children purely in physical terms because the looms are so large. Child labour is, unfortunately, one of the most widespread prejudices still held about India. There are certainly still places in India where children have to work. BUT WE GUARANTEE THAT IS NOT THE CASE HERE! We have reliable controllers and technicians on site who monitor the entire production sequence up to shipment.

Another special feature of the operation is the employment of handicapped people.
This really is an exception in India. These people are given a job and occupied in both office and production depending on the degree of their handicap. The wages paid to the employees are far above the national average and guarantee a basis for a good family life in comparison to the country's standard. We are very proud to have been working almost 5 years with our partner so successfully and so innovatively, and are looking forward to many more years of co-operation.

The modern dye works with which we cooperate only use high-quality, harmless and heavy-metal-free dyes (it is not for nothing that our baby slings were rated with "VERY GOOD" in a material test carried out by the German ÖKO-Test organisation, year-book for small children 2005).
In addition, the dye works are fitted out with technically advanced wastewater recycling units which are subject to the latest environmental laws and checks, even in India.

If we were to ignore these ecological and social standards, we would be able to produce our slings at considerably lower cost. But to be "only" cheaper than other manufacturers is not our aim, and certainly not part of our philosophy.

Our slings are not pre-shrunk after weaving because this production stages are necessary and expensive, and because the environment is unnecessarily polluted by the soap suds. For this reason the slings are slightly longer than stated before washing, and only have the stated length after the first wash.

The social environment (schools, hospitals etc) is well-founded where our partner is located. Since this region already has a good infrastructure and we, the HOPPEDIZ® Company, cannot change very much more there, we are supporting a school project for homeless children in Bombay.

Here the teaching is mostly done by voluntary teachers, who teach children who have no parents or whose parents need to work and have no money for school at fixed times and fixed locations in the city. Many of these children are given a place at a regular school after regularly attending the "school without walls".

We regularly donate money from the sales of our baby slings to this school project for homeless children in Bombay. This means that we are safe in the knowledge that 100% of our money reaches its target without shrinking due to "additional costs" on the way there.
We could, of course, sell our slings at higher cost. But why should we do that? Our priority aim is to enable as many parents to carry and children to be carried as possible in a very good, affordable sling. An excellent price to performance ratio does not necessarily mean reductions in quality, ignoring the environment or social injustice.
If you have any further questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us.

Annette & Ingo Schröder