GROW-ing more than bananas
Photos courtesy of Organics Unlimited
Mayra and Daniella Velazquez de León
A GROW banana provides more than just nutrition.
The organic fruits from Mexico and Ecuador with a “GROW” sticker are sourced from the family-owned Organics Unlimited company. The GROW label stands for Giving Resources and Opportunities to Workers, reflecting a small surcharge on each box supporting families and communities where the bananas are grown.
The GROW program is celebrating its 20th anniversary in September with GROW month, and PCC is marking two landmarks along with it: One is the co-op’s twenty years participating in the program through its supplier, Organically Grown Company — all bananas at PCC carry the GROW label. The other is a milestone contribution: GROW contributions from PCC over those years have now exceeded $500,000. (Technically, the latest total from the surcharge of 60-cents per case of bananas, plus a more recent addition of 40 cents per case of papayas, is $500,639.90.)
That total, combined with Organics Unlimited’s other customers, has added up to a generation’s worth of education, training and health services.
The story of GROW bananas
The family behind the company has a long history with what’s been described as “an ethical banana.” That work began with Carlos Cortes, who in the 1970s became the first to market organic bananas in the United States.
When Cortes died, he left his daughter, Mayra, a letter saying “when you’re running a business, you can’t just think about making the most money. You have to think about the value that you’re bringing your workers and your customers and your communities,” said his granddaughter, Daniella Velazquez de León, now logistics manager of the family-owned business.
The GROW program started when Daniella’s parents were farming in Colima, Mexico, and looking for a daycare. “The farm workers were initially bringing their kids into work with them. They’d have their babies strapped on their backs,” she said.
To solve the challenge, her parents started working with the International Community Foundation, a San Diego nonprofit that connected Organics Unlimited with Project Amigo, a Colima nonprofit.
“Project Amigo is part of the community, and that was important to us to be able to understand what is it that the community actually needs.”
Now well-established, contributions from the GROW program are directed to a fund managed by ICF for the communities. It has many offshoots, including dental clinics and medical supplies (and malnutrition recovery in Ecuador), but scholarships and educational support are its main focus.
Starting in primary school, the GROW programs work with students and with parents, encouraging the importance of education in an area where it’s common and culturally accepted to drop out early to help support the family. GROW contributions include homework clubs in middle and high schools, scholarships to cover school supplies and uniforms, transportation to and from school, and access to the GROW center in Colima with computer labs, books and counseling.
College students benefit from scholarships, housing, hot meals and a stipend for clothes and supplies.
“There are a few different programs we support. We also have medical clinics, dental clinics, malnutrition recovery in Ecuador, but the scholarship one is the one is the one I really like to focus on, because that that is the big piece of what we work on in and I think the one where we’ve seen the biggest impact,” Velazquez de León said. “At this point, we’ve seen kids who’ve gone all the way through the program and who have graduated and gone on to do amazing things with their lives.”
That includes a recent graduate who found work as an accountant — and who is a new board member for Project Amigo, helping the next generation succeed.
“A lot of them … might leave for a bit, but then most of them tend to come back to their community and give back to their community.”
The benefits are open to all residents, not just workers on the banana farm. “The thinking behind that was, you kind of want to elevate the whole community.”
And those investments have been a focus from the start. “If you hear my dad talk, my dad’s very much like, we need to take care of the people. If you take care of the people, they’re going to take care of you.”
Buyers who purchase bananas from Organics Unlimited can opt out of the GROW label, skipping the 60 cent surcharge per box, which works out to about 2 cents per pound. Some do.
“Bananas are known for being the cheapest item in the produce department. So we do get customers who are like, I just care about price. Just give me the cheapest banana,” she said. Even those bananas will not be cheaper than global competitors, she noted. “We just aren’t going to compete on price if you’re trying to do things in a better manner.”
Ultimately, most buyers invest in those beliefs. More than 90% of Organic Unlimited customers now opt in to the GROW program and pay the surcharge.
Daniella says if she could talk directly to customers, she would tell them how much she appreciates that choice. “I just want to say thank you, and I want them to know the impact that they’re truly having on the communities in Colima. And if anyone’s ever interested in going and visiting the GROW center in our farms, we have service weeks, and they can go check it out.”