Redbridge AFI and Worldwide Fruit this week signed a marketing agreement to bring their soft-fruit businesses together under the name of The Summerfruit Company.

The deal, to service a variety of retail customers, comes in the same month that Redbridge sealed an alliance with Chingford Fruit Ltd to supply grapes to Sainsbury's.

The latest partnership has a wider remit. 'We share a whole church of customers,' Redbridge chief executive Denis Punter told the Journal. 'I believe consolidation has to happen – this is a low margins industry and our customers are constantly looking for more efficient ways of managing the product.' The agreement with Worldwide Fruit has been forged to dovetail the strengths of the two companies' berry operations. AFI is a leader in imported soft fruit all year round with approximately 30 per cent of its business represented by UK-grown fruit. Worldwide Fruit has a stronger UK fruit business.

Punter added: 'AFI already has an excellent reputation in the marketplace but two heads are always better than one and our partnership with Worldwide Fruit will mean that we can offer the retailers exactly what they want – a one-stop-shop delivering the best quality, availability and taste consistently all year round.

'We recognise that companies have strengths with different sources and at different times of year,' said Punter, 'and it is logical to work together to optimise our performance. The past prejudices of competition and the old trading mentality are disappearing. If we as suppliers don't do it, our customers will vote with their feet and do it themselves.' Alasdair Robertson, pictured, Worldwide Fruit's chief executive, said: 'The two businesses are very complementary; the people are well-matched, the product mix is excellent and we are culturally well-aligned. I have a lot of respect for Denis which is important.

'Worldwide Fruit is strong with our domestic growers, but not around the clock. The last thing the industry needed was for us to go out and create fragmentation [by developing an import business alone].' Both sides said the deal will deliver greater availability, more emphasis on research and development, a strengthened technical team leading to better tasting quality fruit.

The alliance will also benefit a wider grower base who will now have access to the new varieties expected from the ReDeva trials – the groundbreaking berry breeding programme recently launched by Redbridge AFI Some of the fruits of the success of ReDeva will now be shared with Worldwide.

'It was always the way we envisioned it,' said Punter. 'We believed that we had the size to go on and develop new varieties – the real issue is that the more financial investment is made into research and marketing, the more recognition will be gained.

'We manage it, but if it suits all parties, then partners of a like mind should be able to use it and benefit from it. We are looking to establish a point of difference and it is inevitable that sometimes you will have to share things.

'We have growers in Morocco, Egypt, Spain and South Africa and they will all have access to the ReDeva varieties. We cannot allow some partners the opportunities and not others.' Robertson added: 'Any deal has to be a win-win and this is a very good result for the retailer and for our outstanding grower base.

'The ReDeva programme is exceptional and as a joint entity we look forward to further improving what we deliver to our customers and staying one step ahead of the competition.

'This is also going to be a good result for The Summerfruit Company.' Punter said it is likely that Redbridge will pursue this joint venture approach in other categories.