Smoothie giant Innocent Drinks has won a Guardian Sustainable Business Award for its work helping Spanish strawberry growers save water.
The company, which scooped first prize in the water category, developed an app after four years of research with farmers and the University of Cordoba, to calculate optimum daily irrigation times.
Dubbed Irri-fresa, the app has seen participating farmers in the region around Seville cut water use by up to 40 per cent, and in 2015 they saved a total of 1.7 billion litres.
Innocent’s head of sustainability, Jessica Sansom, said getting growers to participate was difficult because their water costs are very low.“I hope others can learn from its experience. Innocent is a relatively small buyer of strawberries, so has contacted larger buyers in the region, including Sainsbury’s, M&S, Unilever and Coca-Cola, to expand the reach of its water saving techniques,' Sanson told theGuardian.
As well as on-farm research examining irrigation equipment and water management approaches based on different soil types, plant varieties and climate conditions, the project hosted free workshops, while the University of Cordoba supervised a water blog.
The company also sponsored tours of Doñana national park, a neighbouring world heritage site that is home to migratory birds and the endangered Iberian lynx. Due to water difficulties and conservation concerns, Innocent said it could have sourced strawberries elsewhere but instead decided to tackle the problem.
The winners of the Guardian Sustainable Business Awards were announced last night (26 May).
