Fresh produce group Fyffes intends to phase out its namesake label for its bananas sold in mainland Europe.
The products will instead be sold under the name of the Dublin-based company’s new consumer brand, Trudi’s.
Fyffes’ move applies solely to its “premium banana segment”, the group told Just Food, and excludes produce sold to the UK and Ireland.
Trudi’s was launched last October, with the goal of marketing Fyffes’ bananas as healthy products that also help to support the communities where they are grown in Costa Rica.
In a statement, the company said it had “no plans to fully replace its Fyffes consumer brand in Ireland, North America or the UK”.
It added: “The Fyffes name will continue as our corporate brand and company name.”
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Fyffes described the Trudi’s brand as “purpose-driven”, providing “both retailers and consumers a choice to directly support social sustainability within farming communities in Costa Rica that produce Trudi’s tropical fruit”.
The company is in negotiations “with select retailers” across Europe, it said. It aims to begin its trial of the rebranded bananas at some point “this year”.
The push comes several years after the group was ejected from the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) in 2019 for allegedly not allowing its workers to be represented by an independent trade union of their choice. It had been suspended from the ETI since 2017.
Fyffes exports a range of fresh fruit products. As well as bananas, its portfolio includes pineapples from Costa Rica, Ecuador and Panama, plus melons sourced from Honduras and Guatemala.
It also sells an Exotics range, featuring plantains grown in Colombia and Ecuador, and Hass avocadoes from Colombia, Peru and Mexico, among other goods.
The group owns 20 farms and 19 distribution centres around the world and employs more than 14,000 people.
Fyffes markets its products to more than 500 retailers in 22 countries globally across Europe and North America.
