Our Factories

How We Vet Prospective Factories

All Poppy Barley factories are screened with the following Code of Conduct tool.

Furthermore, we screen factories by visiting the factory, interviewing the factory owner and select employees, and by auditing a random selection of payroll and personnel files.

Factory Code of Conduct Tool

1. Do the factories employ anyone younger than 16?
2. What is the employment structure of their employees?
3. What is the average wage paid to a shoemaker? Is this before or after tax?
4. If a shoemaker is paid by piece, on average, how many hours per week does the shoemaker need to work to reach the average wage as provided above?
5. Do employees receive any benefits other than wages (e.g. health, employment insurance etc. including benefits mandated by the government)? If yes, please detail.
6. What hours and days of the week do shoemakers work? What is the minimum vacation provided?
7. Is overtime voluntary or mandatory?
8. Does the Factory use any forced or trafficked labour?
9. Do all employees have the right to enter into and to terminate their employment agreements?
10. Are employees subject to any of the following harassment, abuse and disciplinary practices?
    1. Physical violence
    2. Verbal violence
    3. Psychological abuse
    4. Sexual harassment

11. How structurally sound is the building? Has it had any recent inspections?
12. How often are the production machinery, equipment, and factory tools tested and maintained?
13. Does the factory have clear fire exits and is it equipped to deal with a fire as required by law?
14. Has there been any major accidents in the five years? (major being described as causing a non-trivial injury)
15. Are any of their tanneries certified by the Leather Working Group? If yes, what is their level of certification (gold, silver or bronze)?
16. Where do the cows come from to make the leather (country and region of origin)?
17. Do any of the tanneries offer vegetable tanning?
18. What happens to the by-products that result from making the leather (the chemicals leftover and the water)? Are the chemicals removed from the water? How are the chemicals stored? Is the water cleaned and recycled?
19. Are you aware of any legislation in this area that guides the behaviour of tanneries (For example in Mexico by law tanneries must clean and recycle the water they use)?
20. Please provide any other information about the environmental or sustainable practices of the tanneries.

The Poppy Barley Factory Code of Conduct Tool was developed based on the International Labour Organization core labour standards and the laws in the countries where we operate. These are the minimum requirements we seek from all factories.

Meet Our Factories

Lupita’s Footwear Factory

LOCATION: León, MEXICO Number of employees: 22 Year established: 1996

The Owner This factory was founded twenty years ago by Lupita. Poppy Barley co-founders Kendall and Justine Barber serendipitously met Lupita when their shoe broker’s 12-year old daughter came home and reported her best friend’s mom (Lupita) was willing to meet these crazy women from Canada, who started with the dream of doing made to order footwear.

The Factory Lupita recruited all of her shoemakers from the sample rooms of León’s top manufacturers. (It is in the sample rooms of larger factories where the first prototype of every new shoe style is handcrafted before it is mass-produced by an assembly line.) The artisans have decades of experience in shoemaking, having launched their careers when it was still the norm to make shoes entirely by hand.