Group of Latin American banana industry associations say retailer has abandoned its commitments on sustainable and ethical supply
Banana suppliers from the main Latin American producing countries have once again accused Kaufland, one of Germany’s largest retail chains, of failing to meet its commitments on fair pricing.
It comes almost a year since it first took Kaufland to task for offering a kilogram of bananas for €0.88. Last week, the Latin American Banana Cluster released the following statement in response to Kaufland’s latest price promotion on bananas.
“The representatives of banana producers and exporters from Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru and the Dominican Republic reject the actions of Kaufland (Germany) that has resumed the practices harmful to the sustainability of the banana sector of offering 1kg of bananas of Latin American origin for €0.88 towards consumers.
“These practices continue to hide the reality of banana production in the region, which is increasingly constrained by the requirements of certifications and regulations of the destination markets that impose hight costs for producers while supermarkets and discount stores blur before consumers the real efforts of sustainable and aesthetically appropriate production to incoherent standards.
“European supermarkets and discount stores continue their empty discourse focused on sustainability that is far from the reality of their actions that rather continue to demonstrate the lack of coherence, of a real commitment and how the search for sustainability is nothing more than a vain market strategy to distract consumers.”
Although calls from Latin American and ACP banana producers for fairer pricing and a more streamlined approach to certification have intensified in recent years, there in consensus amongst producers that, save for a few notable exceptions, supermarkets are still just paying lip service to the notion of shared responsibility.
Emerson Aguirre, president of Colombia’s Augura, said the joint lobbying efforts of producing countries have so far yielded limited results. “Over the past year, we have intensified dialogue with retailers, highlighting not only the real costs of production, but also the positive impact that a fair price has on guaranteeing decent wages, environmental sustainability, and social stability in the producing regions,” he told Fruitnet.
“Thanks to these efforts, some supermarkets are beginning to recognise that maintaining low prices at the expense of producers is neither a sustainable nor ethical practice.”
However, José Antonio Hidalgo, executive director of Ecuadorean association Aebe, said Aldi Süd and Sainsbury’s are so far the only retailers to have adopted the Fairtrade methodology (which uses a Fairtrade Minimum Price to ensure that producers receive enough to cover production costs and a sustainable livelihood) as reference and negotiating long term contracts.
“Aldi Sud has taken the lead by changing its negotiation practice from tenders into taking as a reference the Fairtrade methodology and treating suppliers as long-term allies,” he said. “We hoped that other retailers would follow, but so far we have not received real commitment from them.”
