Up close and personal

We want to be proud of every piece of fruit we use.  So we prioritise buying our fruit from farms that look after both their workers and the environment.

We favour farms certified by independent environmental and social organisations, and pay a premium for fruit from farms with the highest ethical accreditations, such as those from the Rainforest Alliance (all our bananas are Rainforest Alliance certified). 

As some of the fruit varieties that we buy are not covered by existing certification schemes, we have our own set of innocent minimum standards.  They are extremely comprehensive, and cover all relevant areas from labour conditions to appropriate growing techniques to protection of biodiversity.  Quite simply put, they are there to ensure a fair deal for the grower, the worker, the local environment and the country of origin.  We ask our suppliers to work towards these when an existing scheme is not available.

Of course,we cannot promise that our growers are perfect. We're certainly not perfect, and we can't expect our growers to be perfect either. But we can expect our growers to abide by fair, minimum standards, and improve their social and environmental performance in this area year on year. Our strategy is to work with the ones that are the most committed to make real improvements and help them get there. Our three-year 'Get Closer to the Fruit' programme, launched in 2007 involves both innocent team members and independent auditors checking the social and environmental standards on our farms, and working out the best way to get the right result for the people and the planet. Fruits we have been snuggling up with recently include raspberries, blackberries and pineapple with lots more on the list for next year.