A living wage is the income a worker needs to earn to afford a basic, yet decent, standard of living for themselves and their family, including essentials like food, housing, and healthcare. Through our Roadmap on Living Wages and tools such as the Salary Matrix, we help supply chain partners in the banana sector identify wage gaps, collaborate on solutions and share responsibility for enabling living wages.
In Europe and the US, bananas - one of the most popular fruits and a gateway product in most supermarkets - are imported from Central America, South America, and West Africa, where many workers struggle to earn a fair wage. In response, IDH has brought together formal retailer commitments to living wages in banana supply chains across the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK. These commitments have helped align industry efforts, driving meaningful change in producer regions. We also work with GIZ under the Better Together initiative, which brings together each of the above commitments with the German Retailers Working Group on Living Income and Wages.
Together with our partners, we’re working to develop sustainable business models and create positive on-the-ground impact in key banana-producing countries. Through the below case examples we aim to provide some insights on actions taken through our own work and the work of our partners.
“Bananas are our bestselling fruit and by improving wages on this product we can positively impact the lives of thousands of people in the countries we source from. But we want every banana worker across the industry to benefit and we can’t do this alone. So, we’re urging other retailers to act now.”
Convening key players in the banana sector to take shared responsibility for addressing living wage gaps in the banana sector.
Launched in 2018 – currently covers 88% of the total volume of bananas bought by the Dutch retailers.
5 retailers in Belgium committed to collectively close the living wage gap by the 2027 for their banana volumes sold on the Belgian market.
In 2023, nine major retailers joined forces to commit to a living wage for banana workers in their international supply chains by 2027.