Westfalia Fruit cares for people. We deliver support in the form of skills development, education, and early childhood development. We also provide primary health care and improve living conditions for our colleagues as well as local communities.
We support future generations on their educational journey. From after-school programmes to university scholarships, graduate programmes, and learnerships, we create opportunities for the next generations.
Together with Waitrose and Partners Foundation and Albert Heijn, we provide education for 217 children between the ages of one and five at the Early Childhood Development Centre in Tzaneen, South Africa. Additionally, another resource centre on our estate enables children in the community from grade R to grade 12 to use computers and the internet. In this centre, a library, a playroom, and a classroom are available where these children get extra help with mathematics and science from certified teachers.
We care for our colleagues and their health. Even in remote areas, we provide healthcare support. A good example of this is our clinic in Tzaneen, South Africa, where we have qualified nurses, social workers, and doctors who look after our employees, their families, and the local community.
We firmly believe that agriculture is the cornerstone of local communities' prosperity. In line with this belief, vacant land parcels are provided to communities so they can cultivate independently. For instance, unused land in South Africa is allocated to local communities for groundnut farming.
To promote healthy and safe food, we donate our fruit to local communities in which we operate. In South America, we donate fruit to the Food Bank of Peru and the Food Network in Chile. These are social organisations that coordinate distribution for those in need. In South Africa, we donate fruit to our communities and educate them about how to grow crops.
We enhance remote communities' infrastructure with libraries, internet access, extra classrooms, electricity, and water. In Chile, we supported schools by providing them with greenhouses, composting sites, and vegetable gardens. These enhancements are integrated into primary school environmental programmes to educate students about responsible food sourcing.
Throughout the world, we partner with a network of local growers to enhance the quality of their fruit and help them access global markets via our networks. This fosters sustainable businesses that contribute to community growth and development.
In Mozambique, Westfalia Fruit works with over 200 smallholder lychee growers. We facilitated a grant for irrigation systems to improve their production and funded their certification for export.
In Colombia, we supported local growers in acquiring the GlobalGAP certification, enabling them to reach export markets outside their network.
Exporting fresh mangoes is a significant challenge in Burkina Faso due to its remote location and transportation times. That is why we have set up a mango drying facility. This enabled over 2000 local growers to sell us their fresh fruit. We cut and dry the fruit and sell it to first-world economies. Additionally, the drying facility creates about 1500 seasonal jobs, most of them occupied by women within the local community.
In Peru, we promote cultivating avocados rather than other lower-value crops. This enables 370 smallholder local growers to earn a better income to support their families.
Westfalia Fruit advises us day by day, so we are almost like brothers working in the field together.
Local grower in Peru
For growers