As part of its social responsibility programme, Pink Lady is continuing its efforts to reward its growers and encourage dedication, creativity and initiative with its fourth annual Pink Lady Talents event. Every year, a panel of Italian, French and Spanish professionals recognises the best sustainable initiatives from among a wide range of innovative projects.
This year, three projects have been chosen to progress to a vote on Pink Lady’s social media accounts for the final selection of the “Consumer’s Choice Award”.
The chosen projects address key challenges: irrigation traceability, orchard management and labour availability.
SudExpé’s project is to design a device to track irrigation use. The device is manufactured by the farmers themselves, with appropriate training provided. It can be used on all plots (due to its lower cost), providing irrigation traceability across the entire farm, using smartphone and Bluetooth technology.
Cico Mazzoni’s pedestrian orchard, made up of multileader trees with a maximum height of 2.5m, facilitates human intervention throughout the apples’ lifecycle, reducing fatigue and risk of injury and improving conditions for workers, while retaining the basic criteria of productivity and quality.
Finally, Les Vergers de Mauguio is helping those out of work to find long-term employment, recently providing nine young Eritrean refugees with training and apprenticeships in the apple-growing industry, with four subsequently being hired for the remainder of the season.
