Fyffes, the world’s oldest fruit brand, seems to enjoy the same sort of longevity as Queen Elizabeth II.
A familiar sight on bananas since 1929, the brand adorns other lines - most notably pineapples - too and has borne witness to many changes in the history of the trade.
Fyffes director Andy Denham-Smith says: “[In the 1950s] it was just bananas with fruit from Jamaica, Belize, Suriname and the Windward Islands. Then at the time of the Silver Jublee in 1977 Fyffes in the UK was still owned by Chiquita. We were a major banana supplier to a UK market that was then still highly protected by import licences so the only way for the company to expand was to get involved in other lines. The whole industry at that time was very strongly controlled by panels: Cape, Outpsan, Guernsey tomatoes and so on.
“Most produce at that time was distributed through traditional channels: wholesale markets, secondary wholesalers and greengrocers.”
Fyffes became an Irish company with its sale to Fruit Importers of Ireland in 1986. Its sights were firmly set on the fruit distribution Europe-wide that has come to pass. Fyffes has acquired produce companies across the continent to complement the position of strength it has held in the UK.
Longevity is also attributable to setting the pace of change. The group is a pioneer in achieving Carbon Trust certification in the UK for measuring, managing and reducing emissions just as it pioneered banana imports from the Canary Islands back in the 1880s. -
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