As the Food Safety and Compliance Coordinator at Equifruit, Fernanda Gonzalez plays a key role in ensuring that Equifruit’s banana growers meet food safety, Fairtrade and regulatory standards. Fernanda possesses a strong passion for ethical sourcing and a commitment to making a difference in the produce supply chain. In this spotlight, she shares her experience with ECIP, challenges she overcame and her advice for suppliers starting their own ECIP journey.
My name is Fernanda Gonzalez and I’m the Food Safety and Compliance Coordinator at Equifruit. A big part of my job involves maintaining strong relationships with our banana growers to ensure compliance with food safety, Fairtrade requirements, as well other regulatory standards and helping streamline processes to ensure transparency and traceability in our supply chain. My goal is not only to ensure compliance with these requirements but also to support and guide our growers through new and evolving programs, such as ECIP.
Equifruit is a 100% Fairtrade-certified banana importer, which means that we’re supporting sustainable prices for farmers, safer working conditions and a decent living wage with every banana sold. I love coming to my desk everyday knowing that I’m working to help banana farmers escape the cycle of generational poverty by promoting Fairtrade certified bananas and change consumer and retail mindsets on banana prices.
When I first started using the platform, I found it helpful to attend the webinars put on by the ECIP team, and I used the guide and resources provided by ECIP, which contained all the information I needed to get started.
The main challenge I encountered was onboarding our growers in Central and South America to the platform. I found that the most effective way to manage this was to have individual meetings with each of our growers, explain to them why ECIP matters and what they needed to do to join the platform. I then made sure I was available for any questions they had. Given where our growers are located, it was also helpful having the platform resources available in Spanish as well as English.
Equifruit is committed to sourcing 100% of our produce with the Fairtrade International certification. We are also a women-owned B Corp, so social responsibility goals and considering the economic and environmental impact of our business is baked into our foundation. ECIP has connected us to a wider community of socially minded retailers who also care about responsible labour practices, accountability and transparency.
Suppliers beginning their ECIP journey should check whether any growers in their supply chain already hold a benchmarked certification like Fairtrade International. If they do, this can accelerate progress and reduce duplication of efforts.
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