The price is right

Waitrose Foundation

The Waitrose Foundation raised more than £600,000 and supported community projects at more than 30 farms throughout South Africa last year, helping more than 19,000 workers. In total, 95 projects have been funded so far, through which just over £1.45 million has been raised to help fund a range of social upliftment projects.

The Waitrose Foundation is a partnership created by Waitrose in 2005 to help improve the lives of farm workers who grow and pick South African fruit sold by the retailer. Money raised by the sale of this fruit is spent on projects that benefit the farm workers.

“We launched the Waitrose Foundation as a long-term initiative that responds directly to the economic opportunities in South African agriculture,” says Jocelyn Clarke, senior Waitrose buyer and a Waitrose Foundation director. “At the core of the foundation is the empowerment of individuals, building on the ethical trading principles at the heart of the John Lewis Partnership - honesty, fairness, integrity and trust.

“Our business structure means we take a long-term approach to supplier relationships, as we passionately believe that supplier sustainability and trading fairly just makes good sense. It is now more important than ever to support the communities we source from in this way, and enabling farm workers to invest in their communities is vital to sustaining the best-quality produce. Our customers really have responded with enthusiasm to the principles of the Waitrose Foundation, which provides a meaningful link between them and the workers who grow their fruit,” stressed Clarke.

The foundation’s funding model has been developed to support South Africa’s particular economic structural changes and agricultural policies of upliftment and empowerment. The initiative has the endorsement of the South African government and is in line with the AgriBEE (Black Economic Empowerment) reforms.

“The Waitrose Foundation is making a difference to people every day,” says Faith Brown, Waitrose Foundation general manager in South Africa. “It is not simply a slogan or logo on our fruit. This is indeed a powerful tool that has allowed us to see the most remarkable, positive changes in the lives of countless people on farms that are affiliated to the Waitrose Foundation.”

The range of social upliftment projects includes training centres that provide workers with the chance to improve their literacy, as well as media centres that provide schoolchildren with after-school facilities where they are taught computer skills and assisted with school projects. Waitrose Foundation funding has also helped to provide new clinics that offer healthcare, as well as crèches that provide skilled care and education for workers’ children. The foundation has also assisted in the establishment of sewing projects that provide income when the fruit season is over, producing protective clothing sold to farms and local businesses.

The Hex River Valley grape production region was hit by devastating floods in November 2008 and the Waitrose Foundation provided relief assistance to its farms, where crops and workers’ houses had been damaged. An extract from a hand-written letter addressed to the Waitrose Foundation by Riaan Jokka, a farm worker from Hexview Farm, reads: “We are most grateful to the Waitrose Foundation for the food and mattresses we received after our homes were flooded and we thank God for this help in our time of dire need.”

The foundation is a partnership between all members of the supply chain, as growers, exporters, importers and Waitrose all contribute a percentage of their profits towards the fund. This pays for educational, social and healthcare projects, which are identified and chosen by workers’ committees on the various farms.

“Traditionally, South African farm workers were excluded from decision-making and the process of empowering them to make decisions and arrangements with regard to this funding has been hugely beneficial,” explains Brown. “The human development that takes place in the process of implementing the projects is quite remarkable and witnessing this daily is one of the chief rewards of my job. The foundation has been implementing human development for three years and the life skills that have been developed through the foundation’s activities are irreversible.”

Bruwer Swiegers, a citrus and stonefruit grower near Robertson in the Western Cape, supplies Waitrose with plums and citrus. Over the past three years, the funds provided by the Waitrose Foundation have assisted with the establishment of a crèche, kitchen and media centre for schoolchildren and adult basic literacy training. The foundation also funds the salaries of the centre manager and literacy trainer. “Seeing what it means to people over 40 learning to read and being able to write their own name for the first time is quite profound and I can truly equate it to the experience of the blind seeing for the first time,” he says. “We so often assume that people are literate and for the workers this has changed their lives beyond measure.”

Brown adds: “For the recipients, these funds and the resources they bring provide miracles every day. This always brings smiles and people tell me they are hopeful about the future. Despite the economic downturn, it is vital that we continue with our efforts, as we cannot afford to dash the hopes of the very people whose hopes we have raised.”

Fruit sold under the Waitrose Foundation initiative includes citrus, avocados, grapes, stonefruit and mangoes ­­- all clearly identified in Waitrose shops with Waitrose Foundation stickers.

Fairtrade labelling

Fairtrade certification (FLO-CERT) has been active in South Africa for a number of years and is expanding rapidly. In 2007, there were 31 FLO-certified producers and today there are 129, and now the certification is possible for fresh fruit, dried fruit, wine and Rooibos tea, which is indigenous to South Africa. Producers in neighbouring countries such as Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, Swaziland and Zimbabwe have also achieved successful accreditation for a wide range of products.

Fairtrade promotes social and economic development and the considerable social premiums received from marketing produce under the Fairtrade label over the past few years have been re-invested into the communities in South Africa that produced the fruit. Fairtrade insists that the funds are channelled back to the small farmers or workers through a separate legal entity from the farm. The decisions on how the funds are spent are made by a joint body consisting of representatives from both the workforce and management. This has led to the establishment of community halls, crèches, sports facilities, tourist accommodation and a host of other initiatives.

In response to South African Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment legislation, FLO-CERT has adopted a specific country policy for South Africa. The three main areas of focus are on direct ownership by black people, corporate social responsibility - incorporating preferential procurement - as well as employment equity, with the emphasis on the empowerment of black people.

Groendal Farm in the Langkloof apple and pear production region near Port Elizabeth achieved Fairtrade accreditation in 2007. Until recently, this farm was the sole property of Johan and Rina Kritzinger, and in 2006 they sold 50 per cent of the property to a trust owned by their farm workers. The farm has since exported some of its fruit under the Fairtrade banner. “This is a tough accreditation to achieve,” explains Rina Kritzinger. “The audit is annual and is both intensive and expensive, but we are now receiving the benefits, as marketing under the Fairtrade banner has provided access to sought-after supermarket programmes that we did not have access to before. The prices we receive for our fruit are better than through conventional marketing and the added benefit is that a portion of the premium that Fairtrade charges is returned to the farm workers. The farm worker joint body decided to pay all its children’s school fees and to buy a complete school uniform for each of the children on the farm. The funds are also used towards paying half of the medical expenses for farm workers and their families, and this also applies to seasonal workers.”

De Hoop Farm in the Hex River grape production region is also Fairtrade accredited. In 2006, table grape farmers De Villiers Graaff and AJ Reyneke, who farm in a partnership in the valley, sold the workers on their farms a 60 per cent shareholding in De Hoop - a 38-hectare table grape farm. “Many of the people who are involved in this project have worked for us for many years and this has provided us with the opportunity to engage them in a meaningful form of empowerment,” says Graaff. “The Fairtrade accreditation and marketing channel is definitely beneficial to both the business and the people working on De Hoop. On the commercial side, this makes shelf space available to us in coveted supermarket programmes such as Marks & Spencer, Morrisons and The Co-operative in the UK, as well as in Loblaws in Canada. The minimum price guarantee ensures that our business makes a profit. On the social development side, the social premiums paid to the farm by the retailers are substantial given our supply. Last year, this paid for three new homes on De Hoop.”

Andrew Geduld, a senior supervisor at De Hoop, says: “I have been sharing a house with other family members for years and this has been a wonderful and unexpected surprise.” He and his partner, Doreen Fiellies, are proud as punch of their new home, courtesy of Fairtrade social premiums. “The support we receive from Fairtrade makes us all take extra care when preparing our grapes for our customers,” concludes Geduld.

Ethical commitment

The South African fresh produce industry is committed to a common industry solution to ethical trade matters and is driving an initiative in the industry to formulate a universal South African standard of sound ethical labour practices that could be implemented on South African farms across all fruit sectors, as well as along the entire trade chain. This is a proactive initiative that is not linked to incentive labelling or attaining specific market space.

The past six months has seen an unprecedented focus on ethical trading in the South African fresh fruit industry and, as first-tier suppliers to overseas markets who have to deal directly with buyers and retailers, exporters often find themselves caught between the ethical trade requirements of the retailers and the producers who are having to satisfy these requirements. Negative experiences of ethical audits among producers have created resistance to the value of the audit and its associated processes, and exporters felt the need to develop an appropriate response to this. At the same time, many retailers are in the process of spelling out their respective standards of what will be required in the next couple of years.

“This plan has been the result of a sharp increase in the focus on ethical trading in the South African fresh fruit industry and is currently being developed in close co-operation with all relevant stakeholders,” explains Colleen Chennells, ethical trade driver at the South African Fresh Produce Exporters’ Forum (FPEF). “Just as South African farmers are expected to adhere to strict codes of compliance with on-farm practices, so too should global buyers and sourcing companies bind themselves to ethical practices by being equitable and impartial in their treatment of all global suppliers.”

The initiative covers social, environmental and health and safety issues from farm to marketplace, where various supermarkets stipulate adherence to their chosen ethical standards and related social auditing systems. As producers and other supply chain stakeholders usually supply a number of retailers, this becomes both costly and time-consuming. “We aim to pre-empt this duplication of ethical audits by providing a practical, workable set of standards relevant to South Africa, compliant with South African law as well as with internationally accepted labour standards. Once this set of standards is acceptable to our stakeholders and receivers, these standards can then be audited by impartial auditing bodies,” explains Chennells.

In a related initiative, the FPEF is working with the Commonwealth Secretariat in London to host and drive the first international buy-supply forum in June or July 2009. International stakeholders such as retailers, non-governmental organisations, exporters and importers will be invited, and this will provide them with the opportunity to discuss buying practices along the supply chain.

A case study

At Naudeshof Grape Farm, the Waitrose Foundation has assisted with various social upliftment and community projects. The foundation also funds the salaries for two trainers in the media centre. Bettie Hendricks is 59 years old and lives and works on Naudeshof. She did not attend school growing up and in recent years, since her children have grown up, has been able to fulfil a lifelong dream of learning to read and write by joining the adult basic education training classes offered at Naudeshof.

“My private life is now my own,” says Hendricks. “I do not need to guess who I can trust with my private letters or be charged a taxi fare for two people instead of one to go to town, since I can read the prices myself. When people make a phone call to my house and I have to write the number down, it is no longer necessary to call a child or someone else to write the number down for me. All documents I sign myself and I am no longer ashamed of making a cross because I cannot write.

“Sometimes I still have to sound the words, but the words come. I don’t know everything yet but it is like a new world that has opened like a donkey whose blinkers have been removed.”

The need for an after-care centre was identified by the workers and was renovated with funds from the Waitrose Foundation. Jessica Swartz and Zelda Benjamin share the task of adult literacy training, caring for pre-schoolers and assisting schoolchildren with their homework. “We work together well,” says Swartz. “The children benefit from group work and the parents can get on with their work with the assurance that their children are safe and cared for, and that they are getting their homework done.”

“The workers on Naudeshof are very happy to have this facility and we are eternally grateful to the Waitrose Foundation for all its support,” Benjamin concludes.