Sometime ago I told you of a visit to Westfalia, some four hours drive from Jo'burg or Jozies as we say here. The first visit was just finding out if we could introduce some new mango varieties. And we can! From next year we have some excellent new mangos being flown right from Limpopo to Holland into our stores during the South African beginning of the year season.
And as I also told you we visited Westfalia again with a group of consumers that won a trip to South Africa with the Dutch Fairtrade organization, Max Havelaar. We then visited the avocado farm in Tzaneen.
Well, we've just been back again. This time we went with Gé Happe, produce boss of Albert Heijn, and 10 of his store produce managers. These people were the proud winners of a competition for the highest sales in avocados.
First we visited an orange farm in Westfalia and Gé liked the taste of the oranges so much that he immediately ordered a container. That's what you call business! And of course we went to the creche again. Albert Heijn was one of the major contributors to getting the creche built, through all of its fairtrade sales. And the great news is that Albert Heijn will sell only fairtrade avocados during the South African season. Dropping conventional sales in favor of Fairtrade is a major innovation. More news to follow...