Pioneering and specialist Fairtrade fruit company AgroFair UK has announced an annual turnover of £7.3 million, with year-on-year growth figures of 60 per cent to December 2007.
The company, which is co-owned by farmers in Africa and Latin America and supplies Fairtrade fruit to all major UK supermarkets, has also experienced an 87 per cent increase in sales of Fairtrade fruit by volume.
These figures include increases in sales of bananas, pineapples, mangoes, soft citrus and other fruit, together with sales of the world’s first Fairtrade grapefruit, developed by AgroFair and sold through Co-op stores from last summer.
John Bowes, managing director of AgroFair UK, said: “What’s most important about these figures is that they represent new possibilities and new opportunities for the marginalised fruit farmers who co-own our company - in education, healthcare and other vital elements of life. The UK consumers’ desire for Fairtrade produce and the response from major retailers has been of huge benefit to the farmers and workers who form part of AgroFair.”
The benefits brought to their local communities include financial support from AgroFair for constructing coldstorage and pre-cooling facilities for pineapple farmers in Costa Rica. In Burkina Faso, West Africa, the Fairtrade premium has been used to buy a motorbike for 300 organic Fairtrade mango growers, to help transport information between the farmers on their small plots of land.
The sales figures will be presented to the Annual Shareholders’ Meeting of AgroFair in London in June. Fruit farmers including mango growers from Burkina Faso, pineapple farmers from Costa Rica, banana farmers from Peru and representatives from many other farming groups are meeting to discuss and vote on the company’s policies and future direction. The farming organisations have a 50 per cent stake in the company, with the other 50 per cent owned by Fairtrade organisations and NGOs.
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