A Three Year Program Provides More Sustainable Results

Worldwide Fruit have been investing in their sustainability programme for over three years now. From the beginning they have decided to adopt a bottom-up approach and to combine lean thinking into their environmental and social sustainability initiatives. Miroslav Vala, Sustainability Manager, has played an equal role in adopting lean and green thinking as have the Financial Controller and Production Manager, Lee Pickard and David Candy. Together they have been the Continuous Improvement triad at WFL, mentoring their colleagues in all aspects of economic and environmental improvements.

The trio have been on their journey enabled by the executive management team’s eager support. Neal Collishaw, Operations Director and member of the executive team says “lean and green thinking is about respecting every individual in your company. We recently made a significant capital investment that will support growth in our business including a brand new state-of-the-art warehousing facility which will enable us to support our capacity creation delivered from lean activities. However, we have been even keener to create a culture of sustainability, underpinned by respect for individuals. When people are respected, not only they engage with their hands but also with their minds and hearts.”

“We have been identifying our colleagues’ potentials and invested in developing them. After all, respect for people is manifested in valuing and cultivating each individual. Our determination to learn bottom-up problem solving might have taken a bit longer to come to fruition, but it certainly bears “better fruits” and much more sustainable results. We were keen to internalise lean and green thinking and to learn ourselves, rather than buying off-the-shelf solutions. Now we can rely on an army of people who are engaged in daily continuous improvement; colleagues whom really own and lead scientific problem solving.”