Ethics and values at hope&plum
At hope&plum, we give a damn about our people, our community, and our planet. Like, actually give a damn. Not in that "let's slap a green leaf on our packaging and call it a day" kind of way. We're out here doing the work every single day, even when nobody's watching (especially when nobody's watching, tbh).
We're pulling back the curtain on how we do things because transparency is sexy and greenwashing is so 2010. No performative ethics, no virtue signaling BS.
Just the real, sometimes messy truth about how we're trying to build a business that doesn't suck for people or the planet.
women owned 💪
sustainability focused 🌿
ethically made ❤️
Women-owned, community-powered 🤝
hope&plum is loudly and proudly founded, owned, and operated by Skye and Mallory, and their team. There's no hidden investors or hidden agendas. When it comes to choosing manufacturers, we prefer to support women-owned too, like our local sewing manufacturers here in Minnesota.
We know what "nothing fits" feels like
So we fixed it
Co-founded by a plus-size woman who was sick of nothing fitting right (and her bestie who was determined to change things with her). We built our Lark from scratch with buckles that work for low-strength grips. Made wraps that better fit smaller frames. Created a full range of baby carrier styles that work on plus-size parents (for real, not "up to size 18" bullsh*t).
Nothing about us is an afterthought. Every body type, every ability, every parent who's been told "sorry, we don't make your size." Yeah, we do.
We put people first
Dozens of hands work on designing, making, safety checking, packaging, and storing your carriers before they make their way to you.
We're committed to making sure they're all treated well and paid fairly – like, actually fairly, not "competitive for the industry" fairly (because let's be real, the industry bar is in hell). Our employees get living wages, paid maternity leave, and paid time off. Our sewers deserve actual paychecks, not sweatshop wages. Our suppliers are vetted and visited, and yeah, we pay more when it means workers aren't getting screwed.
We've walked away from cheaper options because the math only worked if someone got exploited. Doing right by people means our prices are higher. We own that. Because somewhere, a parent is making your carrier while being able to afford their own rent. And that matters more than our margins.
Look, we could make cheaper carriers tomorrow. Move production overseas, pay pennies per piece, and triple our profits.
But then we'd be just another company built on exploitation, selling you a feel-good story while someone else pays the price.
HQ in Minnesota, global team
Caring for our team
We have over 30 team members from customer service to marketing to warehouse and logistics. Real humans with names and stories, not just "resources" or "overhead."
Everyone, and we mean everyone, makes at least $22 per hour. Yeah, including our warehouse workers. All employees get PTO and 401K because humans need rest, and retirement shouldn't be a pipe dream.
Our goal? Every single person here should be able to support a family with two children without food stamps or a second job. Just their hope&plum paycheck. We're not fully there yet – Minnesota's expensive as hell – but we increase wages every year and won't stop until we get there. The warehouse team packing your order can afford daycare. The customer service rep answering your email isn't choosing between groceries and rent.
This is what ethical employment actually looks like.
Meet our team
Proudly sewn in Minnesota
Looking after our sewers
Most of our carriers are sewn by our woman-owned Minneapolis-based sewing shop, either in-house or at home. Yeah, in our actual city, not some factory halfway around the world we've never seen.
All our manufacturer's in-house sewers are paid per hour, not per piece. Why does this matter? Because per-piece payment is how the fashion industry gets sewers to work at breakneck speeds for poverty wages. When you're racing to make enough pieces to pay rent, quality suffers, and so do humans. Hourly wages mean our sewers can take the time to do things right.
Our linen-cotton slings and small accessories are made by at-home sewers who prefer the flexibility of working from home (we get it – pants are overrated). They don't track hours, but we make damn sure they're earning fair hourly wages. We do the math. We check the math. We pay more when the math says we should.
We know exactly where your carriers come from and who makes them. Can we say that about most of the sh*t in our closets?
Learn about our production
Supplier Wellbeing
We dig into the work experiences of our supplier's employees, from our box manufacturer to our fabric mills.
We complete annual audits to ensure employees are happy, healthy, and adequately compensated. Real audits, not checkbox exercises. Suppliers are required to provide spot checks with photographic evidence on request because "trust but verify" is how you keep people honest. We physically visit our local suppliers.
We maintain strong, open communication with every supplier because problems don't fix themselves and exploitation thrives in silence. When something's off, we know about it. When wages need to increase, we have that conversation.
In 2026, we're rolling out our new circularity program with 5 pillars that address everything from material composition to water usage to social fairness. It's not just about making carriers that last a long time, it's about building supply chains that don't trash the planet or the people on it. We're talking cradle-to-cradle thinking, closed-loop systems, and actually giving a damn about what happens to our products when you're done with them.
Learn about our production
Artist-made, not AI-generated 🎨
You won't ever find art from an art-bank at hope&plum. We skip the stock patterns and go straight to independent artists for designs.
We work with artists who create gorgeous prints for our baby carriers, and pay them properly. We support their work, tag them, and make sure you know exactly whose art is on your carrier.
Safety information is community care
Some companies do the minimum. We're out here being extra:
- Every single carrier gets quality checked twice
- Free fit checks from our trained educators
- Hours of free safety content because safety info shouldn't cost extra
- Slide into our DMs with any carrier, we'll safety check competitors' stuff too
- We publicly call out unsafe marketing from other brands because someone has to
We're obsessive about this stuff because we're parents too. We get the 3am "am I doing this right?" panic. That's why we're here.
Actually sustainable (not just on Instagram)
From packaging and repairs, to resale and thoughtful choices in fabric and waste reduction, hope&plum is committed to reducing our impact on the environment.
Is it perfect? Hell no. Are we carbon neutral? Not yet. But we're doing the actual work, not just slapping leaves on our packaging and calling ourselves "eco-friendly." Every choice we make asks the question: what's the real cost here? And we're willing to pay more when the answer matters.
We're building for the long haul, carriers that last years, not seasons.
Learn more about sustainabilityBuilt to outlive your baby phase
From fixing busted buckles (because sh*t happens), to selling our 'Almost Perfect' seconds (tiny flaws, huge discounts), to donations and our resale site, we're obsessed with keeping carriers out of landfills.
We could make disposable crap that falls apart after one kid uses it, forcing you to buy new. More profit for us, right? Nope. Everything from our fabric to buckles to webbing is built to survive multiple kids, multiple families, and whatever your baby throws at it.
Your carrier should outlive your need for it. Then carry someone else's baby. Then another.
That's not just sustainability, that's building things right the first damn time.
Learn about carrier sustainability
Boxes too cute to trash (but please reuse)
Zero plastic, all personality
Our carriers ship plastic-free in our cute-as-hell product boxes (made in San Diego by people earning real wages). They're so damn adorable your kid will want to play with them. Go ahead, we designed them for that.
Packaged in recyclable shipping boxes from our local manufacturer, who literally drives them over to us because supporting neighbors > box billionaires.
Zero plastic bags. Zero bubble wrap. Zero of that styrofoam sh*t that haunts the ocean forever. Just good old cardboard that actually biodegrades.
Millennials: We see you hoarding that pretty box in your closet "for later." It's okay. You have our permission to recycle it. Marie Kondo would want you to let it go.
Learn about our production
Why would you waste something this pretty?
No Fabric Scrap Left Behind
We're tetris masters. You should see how we lay out our Larks and drool pads when we cut them. Every pattern piece is strategically placed to squeeze the maximum number of products from every yard. Our cutting teams literally compete to see who can get the best yield (nerds, but efficient nerds).
Even with our borderline obsessive cutting strategies, we still get scraps. But throwing away perfectly good fabric because it's "too small" for a carrier? That's some wasteful BS we're not about. So we turn those offcuts into scrunchies and key fobs that sell out embarrassingly fast (seriously, y'all are feral for matching accessories). The tiny pieces that can't become products? We save those up and sell them as scrap packs for your craft projects.
The truly tiny scraps? Okay, fine, some get trashed (we tried shoving them all into office poufs, but we've run out of space). But we squeeze every possible use out of our fabric first.
SHOP OUR ACCESSORIES
No hidden agendas
Open and Honest
We pride ourselves on our independence and integrity. There's no hidden investment or ulterior motives, just our team, caring deeply about making good quality, safe baby carriers that improve your life, without exploiting people or our planet.
You won't catch us telling you a Lark is safe for a newborn, just because it passed minimum safety testing, or giving influencers carriers without ensuring they know how to wear them safely.
We're also not perfect. If we've missed something, we want to know.
Progress not perfection 🫶
Ethics isn't something you achieve once and call it done. It's showing up every day and doing the hard thing.
We're constantly examining our own BS, fixing what's broken, and choosing people and planet over profit. Not perfect, never done, but giving a damn and backing it up with action every single day.