‘‘At PLUS, we stand for Good Food. Good Food comes from a healthy supply chain. In 2010, we were the first Dutch supermarket that made the choice to only sell Fair Trade bananas. Bananas have been the most sold product in the supermarket for years. Enough reason to take the next step because we can make an impact with this.’’ – Eric Leebeek, Commercial Director at PLUS –
Together with Dutch food retailer PLUS and fruit importer Fyffes, we have gained more insight into their Fairtrade banana supply chain and made all bananas traceable from tree to store. From now on, consumers can buy Fairtrade, Climate Neutral and blockchain traced bananas at PLUS’s supermarkets.
The Challenge
All loose bananas of PLUS are imported from Colombia and are Fairtrade certified since 2010. Currently, bananas are the most sold fresh food product in the PLUS supermarkets and are one of the most traded and consumed fruits in the world. This bears some negative side effects. The banana supply chains are under pressure because it causes negative impacts like environmental degradation, high water usage, and biodiversity loss. The environmental footprint and therefore the climate impact of the banana is significant. By making this supply chain transparent, it can help measure and monitor the environmental footprint of the individual actors in the banana supply chain. Therefore, PLUS, Fyffes and ImpactBuying worked together to take the traceability of the Fairtrade banana supply chain to the next level and make them climate neutral.
The Solution
The Powerchain solution by ImpactBuying provides transparency about the product journey and actors involved through the supply chain while logging different product related information and quality checks. Data is captured and shared in detail through every step of the supply chain by the supply chain partners. In this case, the carbon footprint (CO2) of all individual actors have been calculated in collaboration with the Climate Neutral Group (CGN). Consumers are able to retrieve the details about the journey of their bananas by scanning a QR-code sticker on the banana and entering a farm group code.
Want to know where your banana is coming from?
The consumer can see the timing and route of the journey of their banana, from which plantation or group of plantation it originates and which quality checks have been performed in the chain. Additionally, in the Powerchain applicable certificates (such as Fairtrade, Global Gap & Rainforest Alliance) are logged and verified for each step and actor in the supply chain. Next to this, the CO2 emissions of each batch of bananas are compensated based upon calculations of the Climate Neutral Group. As a result, the Climate Neutral bananas of PLUS are traceable from farm to the distribution center (DC) of PLUS while detailed product data is logged on the Powerchain and visible for consumers via the PLUS consumer website. The next step for the project partners is to decrease their carbon footprint by finding solutions in their own systems and processes that they can control and therefore start in setting.
The Partners
ImpactBuying believes in collaboration and we enjoyed working with the following partners:
