Mike Knowles

Sometimes I feel like it’s hard to keep up with everything that’s going on in the world of fruit and vegetables. It doesn’t seem like five minutes ago I was racking up the kilometres in the halls of Messe Berlin at Fruit Logistica, yet here we are on the brink of summer, with its promise not only of hot weather but also some fantastic fresh produce like peaches and nectarines. The great thing about these fruits, in my opinion, is that they remain seasonal – in the minds of consumers, that is – and, as a result, still create something of a stir when they arrive on the supermarket shelves.

There’s so much potential mileage here for summer fruits in terms of marketing that it almost seems perverse there is no perceptible start and end to the season for certain other products. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to herald the beginning of the banana campaign with huge carnivals in city centres to a fanfare of Latin or African music? Or what about a big party to bring in the apple season? Maybe this is something we could do anyway, regardless of the fact that these and other fruits are sold for 52 weeks of the year? Beer is also sold year-round, but that doesn’t stop the Germans giving it a good old go in October, does it? Then again, they really don’t take so much convincing when it comes to downing the good stuff.

The real question is, do retailers really view seasonality and category management as suitable bed-fellows? Speaking to one Italian buyer at the end of last month, I got the distinct impression that seasonal promotions, particularly for geographically protected products that have a particular historical link with a certain part of the world, can be hugely successful. However, my fear is that the industry’s determination to build year-round supply and to iron out the sales peaks and troughs that used to be typical of the fresh produce sector, particularly in Europe, is leaving us with an entirely uninspiring market.

Varieties can play a part in sustaining interest in individual product categories, but how many consumers really know the difference, say, between one type of strawberry and another? Even if they notice a difference from week to week, will they make a note of the variety name or even think to check? I’m not so sure. Market volatility isn’t ideal, but it’s a lot more exciting. Perhaps this doesn’t make good business sense; perhaps consistency is a desirable thing for those looking to make money; but surely there’s commercial value in differentiation too? We warm to summer all the more because of the winter that went before.

Mike Knowles

The year is 2020 and Wal-Mart has announced plans to open its first store in Indonesia. Following decades of stunning sales growth in India (home to the world’s second-largest Muslim community), any question marks over the US giant’s ability to win over a predominantly Muslim consumer base have now faded. Wal-Mart now dominates not only the Americas, but also a large percentage of the Indian sub-continent and south-east Asia.

Bailian, meanwhile, has overtaken Carrefour as the world’s second-largest food retailer thanks to the huge strides it has made in Africa, where consumers have extended a generally warm welcome to the Shanghai-based operator. Ethiopia, in particular, its population having doubled in size since the turn of the millennium, has embraced the Chinese group’s new Galla banner, which offers a unique brand of low-priced merchandising in street market-style outlets.

Carrefour continues to do well in Latin America and Asia, where its recent acquisition of Germany’s Metro Group has boosted profits. However, its growth has stalled in Europe and the Middle East due to growing competition from the world’s largest food retail group, Tesco-Ahold.

The Anglo-Dutch company has certainly been pushing the boundaries of fresh produce retailing since last year’s acquisitions of Total Produce – the company divested from Fyffes back in 2006 – and seed company Syngenta. By taking such a bold financial step, the company has been able to harness fully the power of vertical integration, turning the ‘field to fork’ theory into reality. When it comes to sourcing fresh fruits and vegetables, the whole supply chain has been brought in-house and made far more manageable.

The company’s employees harvest, store and pack the fruit, before handing consignments over to their colleagues at LinkCool (the logistics and shipping joint venture formed with Maersk Line at the end of 2015). From the distribution centre it heads to the port, while at the other end another state-of-the-art portside handling centre is on standby to receive the fruit before forwarding it to Tesco-Ahold’s main distribution centre.

For the growers, Tesco-Ahold’s front doorstep lies at the end of their plantations. All they have to do is cultivate their client’s licensed varieties before harvesting them. Then, with no further value left to add, they simply turn around and head home.

Mike Knowles

Technology is a wonderful thing. Thanks to the marvels of modern science, we can now develop fruits and vegetables that grow better, travel better and taste better; we can adjust the way crops grow by putting different coloured nets over them; we can store produce in a kind of suspended animation using controlled or modified atmosphere; we can track every individual fresh produce shipment using barcodes; we can monitor the temperatures in reefer containers; we can communicate with all points in the supply chain; and, increasingly, we can find out what’s happening in the fresh produce trade by finding news online as well as offline.

In the next year, it is likely that more and more of Eurofruit Magazine’s content will be published onthe web. As far as we can tell, there is strong demand for news stories and feature articles to be read online. It makes sense in many ways. Until screens are the same resolution as printed pages, magazines will be the preferred medium for Eurofruit Magazine, but the technology that exists for publishing on the internet needs to be embraced, not ignored.

Some stories need to be published as soon as they break rather than be held back for the next issue of the magazine. Furthermore, making the pages of the magazine available online on the first day of the month to subscribers on the other side of the world must surely be a good thing. This kind of technology can help a publication like ours stay ahead of the competition, making it more useful, more relevant and more essential.

In our own lives, too, technology has led to empowerment, particularly when it comes to communicating with each other. No more waiting around for illegible faxed sheets to crawl out of the machine and no more having to walk miles to find a payphone when out of the office. Instead, we are more efficient, better organised and more profitable. What did people at fresh produce trade fairs do before they had mobiles? The queue for the phones must have snaked out the door!

But the problem with this arguably Pyrrhic victory over our less sophisticated ancestors is the fact that once you’ve got technology, it seems, you can’t live without it. What’s more, technology will always be improving, and it’s down to all of us to try to keep up.

Chris White

With the single exception of the Kingdom of Thailand, one doesn’t usually turn to royalty for advice on the big issues. However, the future king of England could be about to change all that.

Never shy of an opinion on the absurdity of much modern architecture or the value of complementary medicine, HRH Prince Charles now wants his subjects to recognise that the food they buy may contribute to global warming.

According to newspaper reports, the Prince of Wales is keen that products marketed under his Duchy Originals brand carry information about the greenhouse gases emitted in their manufacture.

“Charles hopes Duchy customers will be able to use the detailed information on his products’ labels to make ‘green’ choices in the supermarket, which in turn will encourage other food companies to do likewise,” reports The Sunday Times newspaper.

Duchy Originals is a multi-million-euro food business set up by Prince Charles in 1990 (www.duchyoriginals.com) to focus on supplying high-quality organic and premium products. Annual profits of some £1m are donated to his charities.

Although fresh fruits and vegetables are not yet part of the extensive product range, the odds are shortening fast as to when they will do. Let’s not forget, the heir to the British throne is, among many other things, a keen horticulturalist.

Prince Charles was due to outline his plans on food miles labellling to a meeting at St James’ Palace in central London in mid-December, just before this magazine went to press.

Already well in advance the press was speculating busily just how Prince Charles’ labelling scheme might work. Would it look at the weight of gas? Or would it focus on the percentage of a daily “personal carbon allowance”, something that Tony Blair’s government is also looking at, to help people make their lifestyles more “eco-friendly”.

As reported in these pages in recent months, food miles is becoming a big issue in the UK. It also features strongly in the environmental debate across Western Europe, where governments are keen to show their green credentials.

At the same time, shoppers are also catching onto the idea. Europe’s warmest autumn in years will convince many that global warming is an issue that needs to be tackled right away.

And in an effort to do something, shoppers would be forgiven for paying much more attention to what they put into their trolleys on their weekly trip to the local supermarket.

However, as New Zealand agriculture minister Jim Anderton points out in this month’s Trade New Zealand supplement (see p18), the issues around food miles are more complicated than the average shopper might think.

“A standard British shopping trip of 6.4 kilometres in a large family car to collect 20kg of food uses 25.6 megajoules of energy, the same amount of energy as is used to transport the food over 8,500 kilometres by sea,” says Mr Anderton.

Nevertheless, shoppers are expert at making ill-informed choices every day, not least because so much of shopping is driven by psychological need. We’d be fools if we kid ourselves that a label telling shoppers the distance a food has travelled will not make them think twice before buying it. After all, it helped Fairtrade to grow and is driving demand for organics as well.

The international fresh fruit and vegetable business should brace itself for the fallout from the debate on food miles. It’s almost too late already. And without delay it must rehearse the arguments that need to be made to defend this business, not simply for airfreighted produce but also for the global sourcing of fresh fruits and vegetables in general.

Mike Knowles

Professor David Hughes upstaged no less a figure than Archbishop Desmond Tutu at Eurofruit’s Southern Hemisphere Congress 2006 in Cape Town in October (see our review on p26-29), capturing the imagination of assembled delegates with a refreshing mixture of insight and humour that was not only engaging but also extremely useful to the more than 450 producers, suppliers, marketers, distributors and retailers in the audience.

David also uttered one of the most memorable things I’ve heard at an industry conference in recent years. Referring to the various NGOs currently pushing for the eradication of pesticides in the fruit and vegetable business, and to the presentation made earlier that day on corporate social responsibility by Gijs Kuneman of Dutch environmental body Stichting en Milieu, he paraphrased former US president Lyndon B Johnson’s old maxim: “It’s probably better to have these guys inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in.”

The trouble is, people in this industry don’t take too kindly to those causing a mess from outside the fresh produce pavilion, which is exactly what Greenpeace did last year with its ‘Stoppt Gift im Essen’ (‘Stop Poisons in Food' ) campaign in Germany. But as Gijs Kuneman pointed out, at this very moment EU regulations are being altered to further tighten the maximum residue levels (MRLs) permitted on fresh fruits and vegetables, so there is a growing need for suppliers to grasp the pesticides nettle before it stings them.

Of course, many companies are already doing a great deal to eliminate the risks of pesticides and, as our report from the EurepGAP annual conference in Prague on p76-77 suggests, more pressure is being brought to bear on certification bodies to harmonise the requirements relating to MRLs and other food safety standards.

As the range and origin of products entering the European fresh produce market continues to expand, it is imperative that the standards required of the suppliers involved are as unambiguous as they can possibly be. Meanwhile, corporate social responsibility is informing consumer choice more and more, and as a result it is becoming more of a pressing concern for big business. Long may this continue.

Mike Knowles

Fairtrade bananas quite clearly have something that the sector’s multinational players do not: the unquestioned support and trust of consumers. With sales of Fairtrade fruit in Europe now worth more than €60m, it is clear that people believe it to be one of the most effective ways of ensuring the money they spend is benefiting not just the corporate executives and investors of this world, but also the people who actually produce the fruit.

Our interview with one of the Fairtrade movement’s founders, Nico Roozen, on p76-78 of this month’s magazine reveals a great deal about how the big companies are looking to position themselves as more than just bulk banana shippers. Chiquita, Del Monte, Dole and Fyffes are all attempting to improve their levels of corporate and social responsibility, says Mr Roozen, and this is thanks in no small part to the success of Fairtrade over the past decade, which has increased consumers’ concern about where and how the fruit and vegetables they eat are produced.

Our October issue also includes Trade South Africa, starting on p39, Eurofruit Magazine’s most in-depth look ever at what is one of the Southern Hemisphere’s leading suppliers of fresh produce. Here too, there is evidence of greater focus on responsible production. And while the success of Fairtrade fruit reflects this greater need among consumers for a clear conscience about the health of the planet, the fact that sales of organic fresh produce from South Africa and elsewhere have rocketed over the last few years suggests they are also increasingly concerned about their own health.

However, there are shadows lurking behind both the Fairtrade and organic industries. As our comment piece on p169 observes, there is a danger that systems of certification and control may be failing in the rush to supply Fairtrade-branded products. Meanwhile, Natural Selection Foods, the California-based grower at the centre of last month’s outbreak in the US of E.coli linked to conventionally produced spinach, is also the country’s largest grower and shipper of certified organic produce. The consequences for this fastgrowing sector, should organic spinach be implicated, would almost certainly be huge, because although consumers care about protecting the environment, they also care a great deal about protecting themselves.

Chris White


Fairtrade products have come more sharply into the spotlight in recent weeks, and this time for all the wrong reasons. An investigation by the Financial Times has revealed that labourers involved in the production of Fairtrade coffee in Peru have been paid less than the legal minimum wage.

Quoting industry sources, the financial daily newspaper also reports that non-certified coffee has been marked and exported as Fairtrade while certified coffee has been illegally planted in areas of protected rainforest. “This casts doubt on the certification process used by Fairtrade and similar marks that require producers to pay the minimum wage,” reports the FT’s Peru corrrespondent. “It also raises questions about the assurances certifiers give about how premium-priced fair trade coffee is produced.”

Coffee was among the first major food products to carry the Fairtrade mark, attracting at first a small clientele of socially-concerned consumers. Since then, Fairtrade coffee and, it has to be said, the philosophy that drinking a cup of it represents, has gone mainstream, so much so that even Nestlé has launched its own line of fairly-traded coffee.

Although, as has been suggested, much of the interest in Fairtrade used to be limited to a specific and comparatively small group of socially and ecologically aware shoppers, its arrival into the mainstream is not only a result of the wider acceptance of these ideas but also, and probably most importantly, because everyone involved in the Fairtrade supply chain sees there is good money in it too.

Fairtrade gained ground in the 1990s as a means of helping bring higher returns to food producers, many of whom got poor returns year after year as money was swallowed up by the rest of the supply chain and returned only meagre amounts to the producers themselves. In the fruit sector it is Fairtrade bananas that have made the biggest splash, not least because they’re a commodity product available year-round and from numerous sources.

Indeed, in certain markets such as the UK, some major food retailers have become so interested in Fairtrade bananas that they’re keen to market ever more volumes of the product. A quick look around a handful of major stores in central London last month demonstrated the extent to which, at least in these shops, Fairtrade bananas now dominate the offer. It seems they’re being sold much more effectively than conventional fruit, which was offered loose or as a ‘value’ product; in fact, it was the famous banana that bears the blue label that was selling at the lowest price on that day!

Fairtrade bananas have taken the UK market by storm in the last few years, so much so that retailers are now demanding sometimes exponential increases in volumes from one year to the next. And even if it has something to do with the demand for Fairtrade coming from the shopper, it is fair to assume that food retailers also see good money and good margins to be made from them.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong in any of this, especially if it helps to reinvigorate the sector and drive sales. But, much like the FT’s coffee story in Peru, it begs the question whether, in the rush to source new supplies, there is not a danger that the systems of certification and control start to come unstuck.

If anything, the recent problems that the FT has reported have come at just the right time. It obliges those who certify in this rapidly growing part of the business to redouble their effforts to ensure that only the produce that is certified has the right to call itself Fairtrade.

Caroline Pike

As you know, ladies and gentlemen, all good things must come to an end. Thankfully, many not-so-good things also have a finite shelf-life so you may be relieved to read that my tenure as editor of Eurofruit Magazine is now drawing to a close. At the end of this month I shall be leaving to take up the position of Professor of Quantum Physics at the University of Duisburg.

Truth be told, they’ve been chasing me for years but what with my advisory work for the UN and training for the British Olympic Show Jumping team, I simply haven’t had the time. Something just had to give.

To be honest, I’ve been thinking for a long time that the danger money they pay me at Eurofruit Magazine no longer justifies the risk (in my time I’ve been manhandled on a moonlit camel ride at the pyramids in Giza and shipwrecked in the Western Cape).

On the plus side, however, I’ve visited many wonderful countries, met some truly lovely people and eaten an awful lot of delicious fruit. And despite the many challenges faced by the entire trade on a daily basis, it is heartening to see that the industry is going just as strong as it was when I started as a staff journalist nearly seven years ago.

In some ways, the potential for boosting fresh produce consumption has never been greater, given rising obesity rates and the ever-increasing bank of scientific research highlighting the ability of a diet rich in fruit and vegetables to combat this and other health problems. No doubt, my hugely talented and very lovely colleague, Mike Knowles, who is taking over as editor, will keep you up to date with the latest developments on this front.

Regrets? I’ve had a few (Prognosfruit 2000 was a particularly low point for me). But I’ll take away very many happy memories with me. So, to all of you who have ever sent me a story, invited me on a trip or replied to my no doubt hugely inconvenient requests for information, I thank you. But thanks especially to all my wonderful colleagues, whom I am going to miss tremendously.

(OK, I’m actually leaving to have a baby so please feel free to send me any of your favourite cake recipes and knitting patterns.)

Chris White

The next time you buy a cup of coffee, pause for a moment to contemplate “the coffee paradox” and to ponder its relevance to our own business in fresh fruits and vegetables.

According to a recent meeting of the International Coffee Organisation, global demand for coffee has doubled over the last 30 years. Demand continues to grow strongly, reaching a new high of some 119m sacks of the stuff in 2006.

Meanwhile, global supplies of coffee beans have kept pace with market demand, with a small surplus of some 120m sacks expected this year from the world’s major coffee producing countries including Brazil, Costa Rica, Mexico, Ivory Coast and Vietnam.

Yet inspite of this relatively narrow imbalance in supply and demand in the global coffee market, coffee prices have fallen through the floor, down by around a quarter since the start of this year alone.

As the author of a weekly commodities column in France’s Le Monde newspaper explains, the exclusiveness of the coffee bean is part of its problem. You see, the beans are good for making a cup of coffee and not for much else, not a problem for the world’s other big commodities, such as sugar cane or corn maize, both of which are now tipped as an alternative fuel source for our motor cars in the years to come as oil reserves dry up.

Indeed, coffee’s price position has got so bad that they failed to show signs of life on news that global coffee stocks have dropped to record lows in exporting and importing countries alike.

This disparity, which is the title of a new book that explains this so-called “coffee paradox” is most keenly felt when you look at the price you pay for your mocha or some other concoction whipped up at your local Starbucks or equivalent which characterises the coffee experience for consumers in places on the planet as different as Boston, Beijing and Bombay.

It seems that the money in the coffee business is being made at only one end of the supply chain. The people who have most to do with the consumers are the ones who are coining it in.

On the other hand, the coffee producers, those who merely pick the beans and pack them into sacks for sale, are beset by miserable returns that barely cover the production costs.

“The coffee that’s sold by the grower in Rwanda and enjoyed by the broker in Manhattan or Paris is not the same thing,” explains Le Monde. “They’re now paying for all sorts of extras, such as the comfortable cushions you sit on, the TV screens with the latest World Cup match to watch and the hi-speed internet connection you’re now provided with.”

So value in today’s coffee business is being created and enjoyed almost exclusively by the people who retail the bitter, black drink. What’s more, they’re also the ones setting the prices which, according to our coffee paradox, do not obey the laws of supply and demand. And growers just don’t get a look in.

Coffee aside, the paradox should be enough to keep fresh fruit and vegetable suppliers awake in their beds at night. They’re convinced that global oversupply is the real cause for the low market prices. Correct this and the rest falls into place.

The consequences on price of supply and demand in the coffee business suggests otherwise. Indeed, there are clear parallels for our business, especially for those growers who operate at the commodity end of the business. Apple, citrus and table grape growers will know what we mean.

If there is money to be made in coffee nowadays, it’s in those areas of the business supplying something different. So next time go for a large, organic, fair trade latte with extra cream.

Laura Gould

If the thought of a spotty teenager unable to differentiate between an unripe avocado and a downright mouldy one choosing your shopping fills you with fear, then perhaps online grocery deliveries are not for you.

On the other hand, for those of us from the school of “what we don’t know can’t hurt us”, this latest intrusion of the internet into the humdrum routine of daily life is somewhat of a godsend.

Stranded in a dingy corner of North London with no car and the nearest supermarket a 10-15-minute walk away, I apprehensively made my first foray into the world of online grocery shopping a few weeks ago. Imagine my delight when not only did the delivery arrive on time, but I had not been palmed off with the oldest fruits and vegetables in the warehouse.

Of course, there are drawbacks to the system – you’re tied to the house during the delivery time slot (which varies between one or two hours, depending on the retailer); sometimes products are substituted if what you requested is not available; there is the ubiquitous delivery charge; and of course you cannot choose your own fresh produce or meat.

Nevertheless, the impulse to buy junk food on a whim is removed, there is no contending with long check-out queues or surly assistants, and heavy shopping bags become a thing of the past.

The online shopping concept is well underway in the UK, where cash-rich, time-poor consumers are eagerly latching on to the system. The question remains as to whether shoppers in the rest of the world will embrace the idea with the same enthusaism?