Pineapples, mangoes and citrus are the wider target Fair trade Oké brand set to appear on other fruit Plans to extend the Oké Fairtrade banana brand currently appearing in UK supermarkets to other tropical and subtropical fruits will be under way by the end of the year. Initially it will include mangoes from Ecuador available from November until February, followed by varieties grown in Burkina Faso and Mexico. Next spring will see green and gold pineapples from Costa Rica and within a year citrus from sources earmarked in South Africa and Morocco. There will also be emphasis on developing organics under the Eko-Oké label. The news came this week at the launch of Agro-Fair UK, the marketing company whose role it will be to convince multiples to buy the fruit. It is an extension of the Dutch based group with similarly named companies across Europe which have developed the brand, particularly in Switzerland. It is jointly owned by charitable organisation Solidaridad, which ensures producers a profit. Currently the minimum price they receive is around $7.75 a carton. Currently UK weekly shipments of Oké bananas are 4,000 cartons with ripening and distribution undertaken by Fyffes, part of a total import to the EU of some 50,000 cartons a week. The main recipient of Oké bananas is the Co-op while Asda is trialling the fruit at 31 of its stores. Discussions are taking place with Tesco. Sainsbury and Waitrose sell fair trade bananas under a different brand. {{M/E FRESH PRODUCE }}

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