I’ve been to Westfalia again. I talked about that company in my blog before: we’re looking for new mangos to source there. In the West we’re used to eating mangos and we love them, but for many of us a mango is just a mango.
Well, actually of course there hundreds of varieties. We’re trying to find out if we could sell not just one type of mango, but maybe also what we’re calling mango 1 and mango 2. The first is very sweet and the second is more sweet/sour. We will get there, but these things take time. You have to find out if a new variety survives the diseases of this world. The mango season in South Africa is now over, so that gives us time to plan for next year.
Lichees are available at the fair trade accredited farm Springfield which is located in the Limpopo province. We hope that these could be introduced at the end of this year as a new fair trade product in our Albert Heijn assortment. I also took a look at Zebediela, a fair trade citrus farm. The farm used to be run by the government but that didn’t turn out too well. So they asked a farm management company to take over and now they’re in business again. It’s a huge project with even its own radio station - in a language that will take me another 10 years to learn.
With the citrusfarm manager
Finally, news form Corsicana: the farm that is waiting for fair trade certification in Costa Rica. The report is that they are quite optimistic about the visit of the fair trade certifier and now we have to wait on the report from the fair trade Labeling Organization in Bonn. They have to give the final OK. I contacted Max Havelaar in the Netherlands, the local fair trade organization, to find out when we can expect the verdict. They don’t know yet, but will follow it up. Keeping our fingers crossed.