The growth of a traceable-gold initiative in the United States could be “very transformative” for the jewelry industry, says Anthony Maietta, managing director of C&J Fine Jewelry Makers. The Rhode Island jewelry manufacturer is the exclusive distributor of Single Mine Origin (SMO) gold in North America.
“If some of the international brands that we’re speaking with make the decision to go with SMO, it’s going to be a real watershed moment,” he says. “People are trying to do the right thing, and this is a new chance for them to make a conscious decision about metal in a truly responsible way.”
What’s the story?
SMO launched in 2017 as a joint venture between the Betts Group — a 265-year-old refiner and bullion dealer in the UK under the leadership of Charlie Betts — and Hummingbird Resources, a gold-production, development and exploration company that Betts’s brother Dan founded. The siblings aimed to set a new standard in responsible sourcing by offering a mass-market solution that would trace every ounce of gold from mine to jeweler.
Betts Group is now the sole owner of SMO, and it sources the gold from three large mines in west Africa: Hummingbird Resources’ Yanfolila in Mali, and the Ity and Sabodala-Massawa deposits in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal respectively, both operations of Endeavour Mining. The gold goes to refiners in Switzerland that have accreditation from the London Bullion Market Association.
“Normally what happens [in other cases] is that all the gold from different mines gets mixed up and refined,” says Charlie Betts, who serves as cofounder and managing director of the SMO initiative. “The critical bit for us is that refining happens in segregation.”
An independent auditor checks that each batch from a mine gets refined separately from any other material. The gold then goes to Betts Group, jewelry manufacturers in locations including India and the Middle East, and — following a deal the companies signed last year — C&J Fine Jewelry Makers. SMO has an independently audited chain of custody and is in the process of getting Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) Chain of Custody certification.
Betts Group works with around 2,000 jewelry businesses in the UK, which means those companies are using SMO gold by default, while hundreds of other UK and European brands are “actively engaged” in using the metal, according to Betts. Now, he is seeking traction in the US.
“It’s still green shoots at the moment, so 2025 is about starting to generate a real footprint,” he comments.
‘Thirsty for an alternative’
SMO has supplied a few brands in the US in the past, but Betts says having C&J as a distributor lets customers access the gold more cheaply and quickly, as the agreement means the jewelry manufacturer now has supply from the Ity mine available in stock.
“It was a real breath of fresh air for us to see something where we could have an active role in this conversation about responsibly sourced metal,” says Maietta of the partnership.
C&J, which manufactures for about 20 brands, was exclusively using recycled gold until it started working with SMO. Maietta has noticed a “prevalent trend” of recycled gold in the past five years, but says the industry acknowledges it as “an imperfect standard.” People “have been very thirsty for an alternative,” he adds.
There are existing known-origin options, including the Fairmined initiative from the Alliance for Responsible Mining, which certifies artisanal and small-scale mines responsibly producing traceable gold. On top of getting paid for their gold, these miners receive a premium for every gram that sells, to support further improvement and development.
However, brands are excited to have in SMO a “mass-market quantity and mass-market pricing” option, says Maietta.
SMO requires member mines to adhere to the World Gold Council (WGC) Responsible Gold Mining Principles, which address environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, or equivalent standards from the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM) or the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA). It also has its own ESG benchmark.
On the consumer side, SMO gold comes with a QR code that customers can scan to learn more about the mine of origin and the associated projects that benefit the local community, such as health and education programs.
Getting brands on board
This “very full story” appealed to Pamela Cloud, a former chief merchandising officer for Tiffany & Co., who launched New York-based jeweler Roséate in 2023 to “bring traceable materials to modern design.” The brand first used SMO gold last summer for WaterDrops, its most gold-intensive collection. In fact, the company was the one that introduced C&J Fine Jewelry Makers to SMO in the first place; C&J is the brand’s primary manufacturer.
Roséate has also been using recycled gold, but Cloud wants to take things a step further and plans to switch the brand fully to SMO gold by the end of 2025. “[There’s] not a clear definition of what [recycled gold] actually means to the consumer,” she says. “So we were really looking for a clear, transparent partner about gold.” She’s found that consumers are increasingly engaged and asking questions.
For Octavia Zamagias, founder of jewelry brand Octavia Elizabeth, switching to SMO gold is a major undertaking that requires marketing. “You have to really rework the way you’re speaking about the sourcing, because it is more expensive, so you have to make sure that the customer knows that,” she explains. The Los Angeles-based brand has used SMO gold in its last two collections, Pacific Coast and Riviera.
Another early adopter in Los Angeles, Emily P. Wheeler, started using SMO gold in 2023 before making the complete switch last year. “However, due to the major increase in gold prices, we may need to revert to using regular gold for a small portion of the collection,” says the founder of the eponymous brand. Wheeler is considering this for lower-priced pieces “to stay competitive within that price range.”
By Betts’s estimate, SMO fine gold grain is 2% to 3% more expensive than regular-market mined gold because of the segregation in the supply chain. Wheeler had previously used some Fairmined gold, but says she did not progress to 100% Fairmined “because it’s too expensive at the scale we are producing, and it would have made it difficult to sustain my business.”
Cloud also looked into Fairmined for Roséate, but found there was a “pretty hefty” premium compared to recycled gold. SMO gold, she says, is “manageable.”
Fair usage
Alongside its SMO venture, Betts Group refines Fairmined and Fairtrade gold. Betts acknowledges that some may see a conflict of interest in his dual roles as managing director of the group — which he says achieves “basically the same margin” across all its product ranges — and cofounder of SMO. However, he stresses that he is “extremely transparent” about this fact.
“My view is, and always has been, that Single Mine Origin should actually help responsible sourcing across the board. It shouldn’t be to the detriment of positive artisanal sourcing,” he says. “I’m never looking to convert a Fairtrade customer into an SMO customer; I’m looking to convert a customer who hasn’t engaged in the provenance of their material into a customer who has.”
The next step for SMO is raising awareness in the US. Betts has committed to putting effort into marketing this year and will likely have a presence at the June Couture show in Las Vegas, as well as at the Initiatives in Arts and Culture’s Gold and Diamond Conference in New York in July.
This year “will be an inflection point for SMO in North America,” Maietta predicts. “I think brands will really start to adopt it. And especially if some of these bigger ones go [for it], it’s going to make the conversation easier for a lot of the medium to small brands that we’re working with.”
Main image: An SMO gold smelt in progress. (Betts Metals)
