Company praised for its efforts to minimise the environmental impact of its tomato and berry farms
The Foreign Investment Promotion Agency of Tunisia has given SanLucar with the Environmental Impact Award 2024 for its outstanding contribution to economic growth and sustainable development in the country.
The award was presented by the president of the Tunisian Union of Industry, Trade and Crafts (UTICA), Samir Majoul during last week’s Tunis Investment Forum in the Tunisian city of Gammarth.
Receiving the honour, Walid Kalboussi, SanLucar country manager for Tunisia explained that SanLucar opened its firm Tunisian farm in 2008. La Cinquième Saison, located in El Hamma in the south of the country, enables the company to grow tomatoes in winter, taking advantage of the exceptional light conditions on the site, as well as the geothermal water heating of its greenhouses.
“Today, our presence has been extended to Alia in Bizerte and Limaoua in Gabès, for the production of strawberries and blueberries,” Kalboussi said.
SanLucar said its development in Tunisia has been accompanied by “a genuine concern to control its impact on the environment through various measures such as digitisation and the application of new technologies for more efficient use of natural resources, particularly water; also, integrated biological pest control and the use of sustainable varieties adapted to the country’s climatic conditions, among many others”
The company also pointed to how it has positively impacted the trade balance by enabling its Tunisian subsidiaries to benefit from both the group’s agronomic know-how and the globally recognised SanLucar brand.
The company also runs a number of social projects in Tunisia, which benefit both the local communities close to its production farms as well as SanLucar employees and their families. Among its many projects, the enterprise is helping to improve the employability of young Tunisians by promoting vocational training in agriculture.
The Environmental Impact Award joins other prizes SanLucar has already received in the country, such as the Social Progress Award, the Partnership Agricultural Investment Award and the Hannon Prize for its responsible investment in Tunisia.
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