CAPESPAN FOOD SECURITY

The highest quality & ethical standards.

Capespan grows and sells fruit according to the highest quality and ethical standards. As such, we support all aspects of food safety, regulatory requirements and environmentally sound practices in fruit production.

To achieve this, Capespan promotes ethical fruit production, ensures worker health and safety and the fair treatment of farm and pack house workers, maintaining traceability of products from orchard to store.

At Capespan, we grow and sell our fruit following the highest quality and ethical standards.

We regularly undergo professional, third-party accreditation audits.

We carefully vet our suppliers to ensure that their approach to sustainability meets our high standards.

We only build new infrastructure once stringent environmental impact studies have been done.

We apply integrated crop management systems (ICM) to conserve and enhance our use of natural resources.

Energy

  • We’ve designed our infrastructure to operate during off­-peak periods, reducing demand on the grid.
  • When we install new equipment, we ensure that it can manage variable demand and that it produces less waste.

Soil

  • Soil samples are continually analysed in laboratories to ensure optimal application of macro and micronutrients.
  • We never use chemicals that could damage the soil and use of bacteria is prohibited.
  • We apply best practices, such as proper drainage and cover crop management, to avoid soil erosion.

People

  • We’re committed to the health, safety and fair treatment of all our employees. This is entrenched in their employment and living standards.
  • We endorse and enforce policies and regulations dealing with minimum labour standards and child labour wherever we operate.
  • We have our own Social and Ethics Board Committee to ensure that we always comply with human rights legislation.

Water

  • We use soil probe technology to make sure that we don’t irrigate any more than necessary and avoid run-off­ waste.
  • Soil probes enable us to schedule irrigation scientifically, according to the plants’ specific needs.
  • We carefully calibrate our spray equipment to use the minimum necessary water per square metre of our orchards and vineyards.

Workers Conditions

Under EUREP, worker conditions must comply with local regulations, as well as either with the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) Base Code or the Business Social Compliance Initiative (BSCI) code. Capespan is also a registered member of the Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX) and SIZA, which monitors compliance to minimum labour and human rights standards on fruit farms.

Human Rights

Capespan is committed to ensuring that the human rights of its employees are entrenched in their employment and living standards. We endorse and enforce relevant policies and regulations dealing with minimum labour standards and child labour in all our operating countries. In 2012, Capespan established a Social and Ethics Board Committee to ensure that the Group continually complies with relevant human rights legislation.

Practices

Capespan food security practices apply the stipulated regulations of Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) and Good Logistical Practice (GLP) for the production, handling and packaging of fresh produce applicable to the relevant export countries. From our supply base, we encourage implementation of Integrated Crop Management (ICM) as part of the crop protection strategy.