Thanks to solar street lighting, Kenyan workers now feel much safer walking home after dark from their shifts at Ravine Roses, a supplier to Waitrose. But there are also wider benefits: as confidence has grown in the small town of Eldama Ravine after dark local businesses are staying open later.
As one local resident, Nancy Chelagat, puts it: “Since our neighbourhood is so bright at night, we no longer switch on security lights, which saves a lot of money and we can utilise the savings in purchasing [much needed items] for our families. I thank Waitrose Foundation for this project that has transformed our lives overnight.”
This lighting project is one of over 400 educational, social and healthcare initiatives that have been paid for by the Waitrose Foundation. Financing does not come through fund-raising, but as a direct result of the commercial success of over 40 seasonal crops grown for the retailer in South Africa, Kenya and Ghana.
From avocados to apricots, a range of fresh produce is available under the Waitrose Foundation logo that has been endorsed by the Fairtrade Foundation. In the ten years it has been running, the Waitrose Foundation has raised over £8m for a host of programmes benefiting farm workers, smallholders and their communities in the three African countries.
The business model developed by the foundation is highly collaborative and has insured that its funding stream and its growth are sustainable. Waitrose, alongside growers, importers and exporters of the fresh produce, all pass a percentage of their profits to a central trust.
Typically, Waitrose contributes 60% of the foundation’s annual budget, with the rest made up from the supply chain. The supermarket sees the foundation as integral to its commercial strategy of building thriving local communities to provide long-term security of supply.
Simon Moore, the head of fresh produce buying, says: “The Waitrose Foundation ensures we are investing strategically in the communities and supply chains that underpin the production of the high quality produce our customers expect from us. The foundation has focused on Africa to date and we are expanding into other strategic sourcing countries.”
Programmes are delivered and maintained by partners from the local community, government and NGOs, alongside employed general managers. But a central principle of the foundation is that its programmes – and therefore its overall direction – are decided by the African workers who grow the produce. There are clear parallels with the democratic process that has made the wider John Lewis Partnership, which controls Waitrose, the largest employee-owned company in the UK.
Workers’ committees in Kenya have chosen a diverse group of projects ranging from the purchase of an industrial washer and dryer to wash nappies at a crèche for over 100 babies, to the equipping of a training centre with computers and books.
In South Africa projects include the setting up of literacy and numeracy programmes. Among initiatives in Ghana, a primary school has been built so that children can learn inside rather than taking classes outside under the trees.
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