Twenty years ago, Agrofair imported the world's first Fairtrade bananas to the EU. Since then Agrofair has grown to be a market leader in Fairtrade tropical fruit. Next year the Fairtrade banana assortment is being added to, with bananas from Nicaragua. "This isn't a big banana producing country, but fits well within our company. We expect to market between 5,000 and 15,000 boxes of fairtrade bananas from Nicaragua," says Julian Arnts.
As of the coming year, the assortment will be expanded with sweet potatoes from their own cultivation project in Costa Rica and through using a collaboration link from Guatemala. "Sweet potatoes are becoming a larger and larger item, but they aren't yet widely available as Fairtrade. This is where we see an opportunity in the market. They fit very well within our product range," says Julian. "We see the same with coconuts, of which the sales are rising with the hype surrounding coconut water and shavings."