Taller Maya

Taller Maya is a collective of artisan social enterprises in the Yucatán Peninsula

Posted by the DEAL Team March, 04, 2025 0 likes

Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

01 | Brief Summary and Key Facts

Location: Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico
Founded: 2002
Size: 20 employees, 2024 revenue: $627,000 USD
Sector: Consumer products and goods
Legal form: Commercial brand
Website: https://www.tallermaya.org/index
Main products/services: Artisan-made accessories and clothing, home goods and furniture, and honey and sea salt

Highlight of their unique approach

All products are created by independently-run artisan groups, with support provided in the form of training on formal business processes and practices and transparent information-sharing.

Highlight of their unique design

Key aspects of Taller Maya’s unique design include:

Key purpose pillars focused on generating steady and sustainable sources of income for local communities, transparent information-sharing, and building skills and knowledge within communities.
No issuance of dividends and commitment to reinvesting all profit back into local communities.
Decentralized decision-making system involving representatives from each artisan group.

02 | Founding Story

Taller Maya, a collective brand formed by artisan social enterprises from the Yucatán Peninsula, was founded in 2002 with the aim of preserving and celebrating Mayan culture and techniques and creating a sustainable source of income for local artisan communities. In collaboration with the Haciendas del Mundo Maya Foundation (FHMM), a local non-profit focused on economic and social development, Taller Maya began as a way to fill a gap identified within the region.

Many local artisans were unable to reach customers due to a range of barriers such as: 1) living in rural areas with limited access to services such as a courier or mail; 2) language barriers; 3) limited access to professional services and entrepreneurship support. Originally established as an organization providing professional services to local enterprises, Taller Maya soon discovered that local artisans needed greater economic stability to be successful.

In response, the organization developed a commercial platform and sales strategy driven by innovation and quality. The creation of a consistent market for products meant that local artisans now had access to formalized and steady employment opportunities and a way to reach customers. Throughout this process, Taller Maya focused on capacity building by teaching artisans about business processes such as costing, inventory, and marketing. Today, Taller Maya collaborates with over 200 artisans in 32 communities across the Yucatán Peninsula.

03 | Regenerative & Distributive Strategies and Actions

Capacity building with local artisans communities

Taller Maya is a collective of artisan social enterprises in the Yucatán Peninsula. Artisans are organized in independent local groups and are each provided a contract with an agreed-upon costing process. Each group appoints a manager who takes the lead in operational decisions. Groups are trained on all aspects of production such as IP guidelines and how to read and create technical contracts.

Communities are provided monthly reports on their product sales (# of units sold, from which channel, feedback from clients, etc) and are encouraged to make informed and strategic decisions on new products, inventory, and production levels. Taller Maya aims to act as a “trampoline” for individuals — to equip them with the formal knowledge, skills, and network to pursue opportunities and income, even if it means outside of their organization.

In addition, Taller Maya organizes training workshops in traditional techniques such as textile, palm, jipijapa, henequen weaving, horn carving, and embroidery. Each group uses ancestral techniques and materials specific to their region to create handmade objects that carry the history and knowledge of their land and Mayan culture. In partnership with FHMM, the relevant materials and tools required for each workshop are provided and Taller Maya compensates artisans fairly for their skilled work.

Supporting workers

Taller Maya works predominantly with women artisans, with a focus on hiring individuals from equity-deserving groups such as rural and low-income.

Taller Maya is a certified B Corporation and a Fair Trade Enterprise as verified by the World Fair Trade Organization (WFTO), committed to applying the principles of fair trade to all its business and supply chain. Taller Maya has also prioritised paying all its workers a living wage and benefits above what is required by local labour laws.

Product collaborations
Taller Maya regularly collaborates with other local brands to create product collections that highlight unique designs and techniques across regions of Mexico. This collaborative approach revitalizes artisanal practices and strengthens the sense of identity and cultural pride among artisans and their communities.

“We weave paths of success towards new forms of collaboration. Paths towards innovative proposals in which the wisdom, the aesthetic sense of Maya culture, and contemporary design are linked in unique concepts.”
Marilú Hernández, Founder

Traspatio Maya is Taller Maya’s sister brand that produces local food products. Transpatio is committed to sustainable traditional agroecological practices, cultivating high-quality vegetables, fruits, salts, honeys, and native corn. Its goal is to create food and economic security for Mayan communities, promoting self-consumption, traditional milpa planting, and the conservation of endemic species and native seeds.

Currently, the organization collaborates with 43 corn farmers, 5 salt producers, 72 beekeepers, and 27 horticulturists in the Yucatán Peninsula. Its products are developed to minimize environmental impact, made from 100% plant-based materials, designed to be compostable, harvested or collected from sustainably managed sources, and created using mostly organic ingredients or materials (>75% certified-organic ingredients or materials in every product).

04 | How the Deep Design Enables Strategy and Action

Purpose

Taller Maya’s business model is based on three key pillars of purpose:

Generate sustainable sources of income for local rural communities.
Provide communities with product data to support a sense of ownership and empowerment.
Build capacity within communities by training artisans on business practices and processes and creating formalized routes to market.

These pillars guide every decision, as seen by its prioritization of transparent information-sharing with artisan communities. As opposed to traditional supply chains where information flows one-way, Taller Maya’s suppliers have access to sales information which empowers them to make strategic business decisions for themselves.

Finance

Taller Maya has made a commitment to reinvest all its profits back into its local communities, with no issuance of dividends. It operates using a cost-based pricing model, adjusting prices based on costs and passing savings on to customers. This model allows Taller Maya to prioritize the capacity building of its communities as opposed to increasing product margins to accumulate profit for the organization.

Governance

Taller Maya employs a decentralized decision-making system, where workers and members are empowered to influence organizational decisions such as operational planning, procedures and policies, hiring and compensation, and leadership positions.

Each artisan group nominates one representative to attend monthly meetings where current challenges and future objectives are discussed (such as what to do about change in price of raw materials). Members of the Taller Maya commercial team are present and this provides a forum to collaboratively discuss and make business decisions.

Network

Taller Maya aims to create long-term relationships with its suppliers that focus on creating value for and supporting other purpose-driven organizations. As such, the organization establishes long-term contracts of recurring orders with artisans and does not impose exclusivity agreements that restrict suppliers or customers from selling to or buying from others.

It integrates social and environmental criteria into its supply chain by prioritizing other social enterprises and non-profits, local suppliers and service providers (over half of its revenue comes from customers within 200 km of its headquarters or main production facilities), and those that have a third-party social or environmental certification.

05 | Reflections and Lessons for other Businesses

Taller Maya’s model is a great example of a business thoughtfully considering its local context and the needs of its communities and asking itself: where can I add value? While there are many existing models of consumer product brands working with small or local producers, Taller Maya’s approach is tailored to respond to local needs. By being transparent with information-sharing and focusing on capacity building, communities are being equipped with the skills needed to succeed and the ability to overcome accessibility barriers unique to their region.

Businesses around the world can take inspiration from elements of Taller Maya’s deep design, and adapt them to local needs in order to work towards more regenerative and distributive value chains. These elements include a decentralized decision-making model that involves representatives across the supply chain and a focus on establishing long-term partnerships.

This case study was researched and written by Wynnie Zhao in collaboration with DEAL.