Global Fruit: Millennium Company
Garyp – The “Millennium Companies Foundation” (Stichting Millenniumbedrijven) has this year revealed Global Fruit as its Millennium company 2010. For owner Bareld Kootstra and marketing manager Xandra Dubbeldam this is a sign of acknowledgment; recognition of the helping hand offered by the company, based in the small Dutch town of Garyp, to solving some of the world’s most difficult and persistent problems.
A Millennium Company is one that does its part to try and solve abuses on an international scale. Millennium goals are: ending extreme hunger and poverty, universal education for all children, gender equality, ensuring child and maternal health, combating HIV and AIDS, environmental sustainability and creating global partnerships through the stimulation of fair trade practices.
Global Fruit - which moved from the Dutch province of Zeeland to Friesland in 2008 - scores highly on all of these points, mainly because of their own Organic and Fair Trade product lines.
50% Organic or Fair Trade
Global Fruit trades primarily in fruit extracts which are used by the food industry. Fifty percent of the raw materials that are bought by the company could be classified as “conventional”, while the other fifty percent falls into the category Organic, Fair Trade or Organic – Fair Trade.
“Buying all of our raw materials from Fair Trade sources isn’t possible yet”, says Bareld Kootstra. The Fair Trade Labelling Organisations International (FLO) - whose headquarters are located in Bonn, Germany - set the international requirements for Fair Trade products and offer support to Fair Trade farmers and producers. They have still not agreed on pricing norms for all of today’s most traded commodities.
“The prices and certification requirements can differ enormously depending on the country”, states Xandra. There are also differences in wage level and eventual market for the products. FLO’s main focus until now has been on trade between South American countries and Western Europe. “More recently FLO has been focused on making new pricing agreements with farmers organisations in West Africa and South Asia, but all the required procedures can take years to complete”, declares Bareld.
Demands and Rights
Farmers organisations that supply the various Fair Trade labels have to adhere to strict regulations and compliance is monitored on an annual basis by FLO. “It is sometimes the case that organisations that have been Fair Trade certified no longer fulfil the necessary requirements after a few years. In this case their certificate is taken away” says Bareld. “Along with this their contracts to provide Fair Trade suppliers are also ended” adds Xandra.
Farmers who have been Fair Trade certified by FLO are guaranteed to receive a minimum price for their produce. These minimum prices guarantee a fair wage from which the farmers can live, and a Fair Trade Premium – often administered by the local farmers organisation(s) - to be invested in or to help finance local social projects.
To qualify for certification farmers must have a minimum amount of farm land. “This is to be sure that the farmers can attain the required level of quality” says Xandra. “The smallest, and often poorest farmers are therefore unfortunately left unable to benefit from the system.” Global Fruit’s employees also see that large scale producers, that already have profitable contracts, often do not feel the need to become Fair Trade certified because of the high cost involved.
“It’s a question of supply and demand”, states Xandra. “Luckily the demand for Fair Trade products is continuing to increase. While the market in the Netherlands still isn’t that big, in England, France and Germany consumers are much further.”
Monitoring
Just like Global Fruit many other companies are now starting to operate with the Fair Trade vision in mind, nonetheless Fair Trade can also be an excellent marketing strategy. “That’s not a problem” declares Xandra. “This still stimulates the demand for Fair Trade products and so farmers in developing countries benefit either way.”
What occurs in the trading process is something of which Bareld and Xandra aren’t sure. “Currently no requirements have been set up to cover this process” says Xandra. “It would, I think, be a good idea if some sort of organisation were set up to monitor this area”.
Global Fruit itself deals only with the purchasing of raw materials at the beginning of the supply chain. Bareld Kootstra: “We pay on average five to ten percent more for Organic and Fair Trade products than for conventional products.”
If it made good business sense for Global Fruit to make the change to Fair Trade and Organic products in 2002 is something of which Bareld Kootstra still isn’t sure, but he has faith in his decision: “In eight years our company has grown from contracts for twenty tons of fruit ingredients to contracts for nearly one thousand tons of fruit ingredients.”
The fact that Global Fruit has been voted Millennium Company 2010 has given all at the company the extra motivation to continue along their chosen path.