The volumes of tropical fruit and vegetables, such as bananas, pineapples, green beans and avocados, that are sourced on the basis of meeting social and environmental conditions has risen significantly from 50 percent to 70 percent in one year. This is what has emerged from the 2017 annual monitoring of the Sustainability Initiative Fruit and Vegetables (SIFAV), which aims to make imports of fruits and vegetables from Africa, Asia and South America 100 percent sustainable in 2020.

Launched in 2012 with 13 Dutch companies, today SIFAV has become a pan-European initiative with more than 40 partners, including retailers, brands, traders and civil society organizations from Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

SIFAV is the only European-based organization that has been established with the purpose of convening sustainability agendas within global fruit and vegetable value chains and all partners have committed to SIFAV goals.

Under SIFAV, procurement is defined as sustainable when producers meet the requirements of one social and one environmental compliance standard, where applicable standards can be selected from the SIFAV Basket of Standards.

SIFAV says that great progress has been made in the last few years but acknowledges that more work needs to be done to close the remaining gap and achieve complete sustainability.

“SIFAV will continue to promote best practices, support pilot projects and facilitate the collaboration among partners for solving common pre-competitive challenges. A third-party will also continue to monitor the progress of the SIFAV partners towards the goal of 100 percent every year until 2020,” a spokesperson says.

“SIFAV is a mainstream organization that aims to build a broad sector commitment to sustainable production and sourcing. During 2017 SIFAV started a brainstorming with current partners with the aim to identify new approaches and targets for the initiative beyond 2020.”

“In the coming months, external stakeholders will be also consulted to ensure that SIFAV will be in the right position to drive sustainable procurement in the sector also beyond 2020.”

The SIFAV Basket of Standards includes both standards that have consumer-facing logos and those that don’t and requires that social standards are benchmarked against the Global Social Compliance Program (GSCP), the benchmarking facility for social auditing practices developed by the Consumer Goods Forum.

“By promoting transparency and comparability, SIFAV strives to avoid unnecessary duplication of audits and increased costs for farmers. It supports the alignment of existing efforts with international best practices through benchmarking,” added Tony Bruggink, Program Director at IDH.

In its establishment, the founders of SIFAV decided to challenge market requirements, particularly with regards to social aspects.

In 2012, the verification of working conditions at farm level in fruit and vegetable value chains was far from the norm. Requiring close relationships with producers, this has led to a greater awareness of social conditions at the production level and has enabled the development of plans to improve social conditions.

Today, the verification of working conditions is much more widely practiced, as the SIFAV annual monitoring report shows.

At 70 percent in aggregated terms, sustainable procurement under SIFAV accounts for more than two million tons of produce. While this is great progress, there is still a lot of work to do to close the remaining gap and ensure 100 percent sustainable procurement by 2020.

There is a positive upward trend of increased fresh produce consumption in many markets around the world with much more consumer awareness linked to the social impact of fruit and vegetables and how this affects consumer purchasing behavior.

“This is a positive trend that is already influencing the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains and will continue to do so in the future,” adds the spokesperson. “SIFAV thinks that to answer to consumers’ requests and anticipate choices, the sector faces an urgent need to work together to establish transparent supply chains, harmonize market requirements and improve practices.”

The existing SIFAV platform also goes far beyond simply monitoring the sourcing practices of its partners; it serves to facilitate the exchange of ideas and learnings among partners and stimulates the implementation of pilot projects at farm level.

These projects pioneer new and more sustainable practices, with the aim of improving working conditions. These include vital aspects like striving towards the payment of living wages, enabling the inclusion of smallholder farmers in the global supply chain by helping to improve their productivity and market access and reducing the environmental impact of these value chains through better agrochemical, water and soil management.

Leon Mol, SIFAV Chairman and Director Product Safety and Social Compliance at Ahold Delhaize, said: “Collaboration among existing and new SIFAV partners is crucial to reach our 2020 goal, as well as to identify the best framework for the organization beyond 2020. The state of the art concerning sustainability is continuously evolving and SIFAV also needs to evolve. Last year SIFAV started an internal brainstorming process and this year we will reach out also to external key stakeholders to ensure that SIFAV will be in the right position to drive sustainable procurement also beyond 2020.”

Since consumer demand for healthy food, like fresh fruit and vegetables, is growing and will continue to grow into the future, the pressure on these value chains will intensify. The increased adoption of better social and environmental practices is, therefore, key to ensuring a sustainable future for the sector.