European retailers as agents of change towards sustainability: The case of fruit production in Brazil

Figures & data

Table I. Membership of EUREP (1 March 2004).

Continent	Retailer members	Supplier members	Associate members	Total
Africa	0	8	4	12
Asia	0	6	3	9
Australia and New Zealand	0	4	3	7
Europe	24	66	52	142
North America	0	4	6	10
Latin America	0	4	7	11
Total	24	92	75	191

Table II. Number of EUREPGAP control points in the first and second version of the protocol.

	Version 1.0 (September 2001)	Version 2.0 (January 2004)
Major musts	41	47
Minor musts	122	98
Total musts	163	145
Recommendeds	91	65
Total control points	254	210

Table III. Implementation of the EUREPGAP programme.²²

	Number of certified producers
Continent	2002	2003
Africa	316	1169
Asia	4	158
Australia and New Zealand	0	427
Europe	3530	11088
North America	2	11
Latin America	40	187
Total	3892	13 040

Table IV. Main features of three Brazilian fruit producers.

	Brasiluvas	Japanese firm	Fruitexport
Type of fruit	Grapes	Grapes and mangoes	Mangoes
Main customers	European/UK market	European/UK market	European market
Number of employees	Approx. 400 workers	500 to 700 workers plus independent producers	400, plus independent producers
Regulatory environment	Retailer specifications	Retailer specifications. EUREPGAP and national standards for integrated production.	Organic standards and national standards for integrated production.
Main challenge/strategy	Enhancing production	Compliance with rules and regulations	Diversification
Major innovations in the past 5 years	Expansion into seedless grapes, policy of environmental protection, new packing house with cold storage, and improvement of quality of life of workers.	Implementation of EUREPGAP, especially the safety and hygiene rules	Partial conversion to organic and integrated production
Major opportunities	Increased worker productivity	Being able to keep and develop European market share through EUREPGAP certification	Major reductions in pesticide use
Major bottlenecks	Meeting different retailer and distributor quality criteria; potential water shortages.	Uncertainty in farm gate prices. Lack of worker skills	Decrease in farm gate prices and uncertainty about prices for organic