Compagnie Fruitiere UK (CFUK)’s new state-of-the-art banana ripening facility in Wigan, which opened this autumn, was developed after the company secured a five-year contract with Tesco to supply all banana lines to the retailer’s three northern depots.
“We have worked tirelessly to secure long-term contracts with key customers on bananas and this allows the state-of-the-art ripening facility in Wigan to breed our success of the future,” says CFUK commercial director Toni Direito. “We now plan on re-evaluating the needs of the southern facility, in Dartford, in the coming years.”
Direito says the firm’s 2014 turnover is forecast to be about £101 million, with a growing focus on Fairtrade and development on other product lines, including citrus and Senegalese tomatoes, through the wider Compagnie Fruitiere group. Having gained Fairtrade status for banana plantations in Cameroon and Ghana, Direito says the company is waiting to see how contracts allow the development of Fairtrade long term.
“We have gone through many changes in the last seven years in the UK, and now more than ever it is down to the ability to adapt,” he says. “Within the current economic climate, and the changes we have seen in our sector over the past few years, we believe it is our willingness to try something different and the ability to adapt and change that has helped us cement our future.”
