Commitment to a sustainable future.
We do everything we can to produce and market fruit and vegetables as sustainably as possible. In doing so, we take into account the entire supply chain: from cultivation to delivery to the grocery store and beyond to the recycling of our packaging. Ecological, social and economic aspects are important to us and motivate us to always find better solutions.
We supply 60% of our site with energy from our own solar panels.
Biodiversity: In our flowering meadows
By creating flowering meadows, we strengthen the most important allies in our profession: insects.
A safe habitat and excellent retreats are also found there for small animals, such as partridges. And: they are beautiful to look at!
Conserving resources: Dosing water in a targeted manner
The water supply of our plants is controlled by computers. Depending on wind, light and temperature, water and nutrients are calculated for optimal growth. The dosage is automatically distributed directly to the plants. This modern technology enables economical use of the most important commodity: water.
Solar energy at Frutania.
The entire roof area of the Frutania office building and the transshipment facility is equipped with a 1.2 megawatt solar power system. This means that we produce almost 60% of the total electricity required at our site ourselves.
The Frutania packaging
We are always on the lookout for new, innovative packaging solutions. We always look at the entire life cycle of the packaging, because not only the material is decisive but also the recyclability, taking into account the disposal options. R-PET trays have been standard with us for years, but you will also find PPK trays and sealed groundwood trays in our portfolio.
In-house: sealing machines at Frutania.
We already invested in the first sealing machines for soft fruit in 2017. This made us an early pioneer in the industry. When sealing, the conventional lid is replaced with a sealing film, which saves packaging material.
Twelve sealing machines are now running in parallel to securely seal our raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries and currants.
The Frutania truck fleet
With our own fleet of trucks, we ensure stable logistics. The more than 30 vehicles are equipped with state-of-the-art technology and new driver assistance systems. The tractors are replaced every 3.5 years at the latest. Our trucks have been running on Euro 6 diesel since 2019.
Recycling cycles at Frutania
Fruits and vegetables must be securely packaged to arrive fresh and undamaged at the grocery store and to consumers. Wherever possible, we optimize packaging. Because “less is more”.
At Frutania, all waste is sorted and disposed of as purely as possible. To ensure efficient recycling, we have a cabinet baler that can compress industrially usable standard bales from different fractions. The return of paper, cardboard and carton to the paper cycle is standard, but between times all (r-)PET trays, PP, HDPE and PE waste generated at our site is also returned to the appropriate cycles.
We are particularly proud to have already established a way to recycle (r-)PET trays in 2019 and turn them into new trays through one of our tray suppliers. We played a leading role in demonstrating that thin-walled (r-)PET shell material can also be recycled industrially.
In 2022, we recycled 12.4 t of silicone-coated label backing paper via Cycle4green, saving 24 t of CO2.
We feed all biological waste to a biogas plant.
By the way:
We erect our cardboard boxes in-house, i.e. incoming trucks are unloaded in the delivery hall and loaded with erected cardboard boxes for our producers. In this way, we optimize the flow of goods and avoid empty runs.
