HL Hall & Sons and Westfalia have supplied the first Fairtrade avocados into the UK market from their farms in South Africa. The fruit has been available at Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose for the last two weeks.
Halls director Nic Reay told the Journal that while volumes are limited this year, its growers have potential for around 2,000 tonnes of fruit. "We are restricting the Fairtrade offer to greenskin varieties, as there is already a huge volume of Hass available for the UK market. And the volume will depend upon the growers producing the smaller counts suitable for our customers' programmes."
Reay said that South Africa is "rather unique" for Fairtrade, as its labour laws were so recently written that it complies almost by definition with Fairtrade principles. "We set a very high standard in South Africa and most commercial employers more or less disqualify themselves from the Fairtrade mark as they look after their workers so well."
However, the grower that is exporting its avocados through Halls is the Matsifenieri Trust, which is 100 per cent owned. The eventual aim, said Reay, is that the grower builds a business through Fairtrade that will no longer need the protection of the marque.
"We have gone through the ISO, EurepGAP and Tesco Nature's Choice Gold audits and the Fairtrade audit was the most thorough we have ever been through - which is much to their credit," said Reay.
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