Ethical Sourcing Policy

Our Suppliers

All of the Great Little Trading & Toy Company’s branded products are proudly designed here in Britain.

Many of these products are made and supplied by factories based in China & India, while others are made closer to home in Europe and the UK. Even though they aren’t directly part of the GLTC team, we care about the workers who make our products so we only source our products from factories proven to provide good and fair working conditions.  

Our suppliers are monitored through visits from third party auditors to make sure that working conditions are safe, workers are being fairly treated and paid correctly (according to local regulations) as well as having excellent quality monitoring systems. Many of the factories we work with have been part of our GLTC family for many years and understand what is expected and required of them.

Great Little Trading & Toy Company Ltd (GLTC) is committed to preventing modern slavery and human trafficking in every part of its business and supply chain. Our Responsible Sourcing Code of Practice sets out our commitment to workers’ rights and the expectations we have of our suppliers, and their factories, in the manufacture of GLTC branded products. This Code of Practice is based on the Ethical Trading Initiative ETI base code, an internationally recognised code of good labour practice.

The provisions of this code establish minimum expectations, not maximum, and encourages our suppliers to exceed these standards.

We aim to create beautiful, practical and long-lasting products which means we only work with factories that are focused on providing the high levels of quality products we want to supply to customers.

  • FAIR CONDITIONS

    We only source our products from factories proven to provide good and fair working conditions.

  • MONITORING FACTORIES

    Our suppliers are monitored through visits from third party auditors to make sure that working conditions are safe, workers are being fairly treated and paid correctly.

Wood and Paper

Sustainable and transparent sources of wood and paper-based products are key to our sustainable objectives as we make our furniture and toys from wood, wood-based materials and increasing amounts of our packaging is paper based.

We fully support the UK & EU Timber Regulations which require all wood and wood-based products to be traced back to forest source and proven to be from sustainable, legal sources. The international wood market is complex and it can be particularly tricky when we use mixed wood products such as high quality MDF or Plywood but we are working hard to ensure clarity and full traceability is established from our original sources.

Product Testing

We invest heavily in testing our products to ensure they meet legal requirements, are safe and outperform customer expectations, so when we say our products could become family heirlooms, we mean it. This is only achieved by working closely with our suppliers to ensure the very best products are made for affordable prices.

We use water-based paints where we can, but all finishes we use on our products are safe. We test all our paints and finishes to EN71-3, that’s the high standard for toys, to ensure they are all safe for use on products that children use & interact with. 

Sustainability & Environment

As a retailer that provides products for parents and children, it’s important to us to do our bit to minimise the environmental impact of our business and help preserve our lovely planet for the next generation.

As a business, we no longer offer a catalogue to our customers. This has reduced our use of paper materials as well as reducing the energy used to produce and post the catalogue.  We now use our website and social media to convey these important inspirational messages to our customers.

Packaging

Improving the type of packaging we use to protect our products, as well as making it easier for customers to recycle our packaging has been an ongoing project for the last few years now. 

As a business that needs to make sure heavy boxes of furniture and toys get to our customers in excellent condition, we always had a difficult job ahead of us. But we are very proud to have seen a drastic reduction in the amount of plastic we use in this protective packaging. 

The big change we made was to the materials our inner box packaging is made from so it can be recycled easily.  Our void fill & protective packaging is now almost all cardboard & paper with some toys being 100% card & paper. The amount of plastic used in GLTC products has reduced by over 90% in comparison to 2020 levels. We do still need to use a small amount on corner protection but will continue to seek alternatives as progress is made in the packaging industry. 

This project will continue to endure, and we will keep on assessing and improving the packaging we use in the years to come.