Talking Green Bananas

I have read about this new initiative from Dole on a couple of sites (via Chromainc, Rohit)

I think that it's a really smart piece of creative thinking.

As consumers we are all starting to increasingly care about the provenance of our food. One of the many reasons I believe that farmers markets are so huge at the moment, we love the idea that we can speak to the farmer who grows the carrots, makes the jams, juices the apples...But then you get to the tricky issue of food that we cannot grow in the UK, like bananas.

Once we get over the tricky issue of the carbon footprint that results from the air-freighting of fruit and veg like this, I still think that educated consumers are still looking for "the story behind..." In the same way that I want to know that there is a real story behind the food I buy from Riverford Farm (see Urban Greenies post), I want to know the back story of other food that I buy. I want to know that the power of my pound has been used to good effect.

Each banana that Dole sell have a sticker on it. That sticker has a number on it which indicates which farm that specific banana came from. When you go to Dole Organic and type in the code, you learn more about the farm and the people who work there, you can also see the farm on Google Earth.

I wonder if you could do the same thing with bar codes that tell "the story behind..." You could scan them using a smart phone and learn more about the working conditions and the people who created the product.

Anyway today I learnt that bananas that come from "100" are from:
Manabi -
"Our organic farm in Ecuador was established on land formerly used as pasture without any agrochemical use history. Manabí Province, the region where the farm is located has the ideal climate for cultivating organic bananas: warm and dry, but with sufficient water supply year-round. The farm created 120 new jobs, 40% women, during a time when the region was heavily affected by the El Niño phenomenon and an economic crisis in Ecuador. All farm workers come from the immediate vicinity of the farm and the project has had a very positive social and economic effect on the community"

Comments

[Amelia]

I am fascinated by the Dole Organics story - on their site they are picking up on blog posts and consumer comments about this initiative. I think that this is a great case study of who to use the web to a smart, positive effect.

http://www.doleorganic.com/links.htm

[Dole Organic]

Amelia:

Thanks for your comments, please visit http://doleorganic.blogspot.com/
I added your comments to this new blogspot.

Your feedback is very important for us.

Thanks again.

Dole Organic Program