Rooted in goodness projects, empowering farming communities

In partnership with the Waitrose Foundation, we worked with local NGO to develop a grower health and wellness program

Working closely with our network of berry growers across South Africa and Zimbabwe, we're acutely aware of local challenges and opportunities across their farms. As a team we do our utmost to support our growers on a technical and commercial level.

Beyond this we also work with retailers across the globe to help give back locally, so we're immensely grateful for the Waitrose Foundation for helping fund NGO CHoiCe Trust health and wellness program on a local farm.

The project was developed by our berry grower Tzaneen Blueberries in collaboration with CHoiCe Trust (an NGO supporting health and development in the area).

The partnership was established to ensure that farm workers at Tzaneen Blueberries were able to benefit from better financial health and better access to health care and information.

The CHoiCe Trust team worked closely with Tzaneen Blueberries to ensure a range of services were offered around the busy operation of the farm, these included:

??Training & mentorship

??Health talks & campaigns

??A wellness event

The farm workers shared their appreciation for the programme through full participation of the health talks and shared that this was the first time that they had been exposed to this information and expressed that it helped them make decisions more informed health decisions for themselves and for their family members.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Waitrose Foundation for their support with this project and to CHoiCe Trust for positively empowering the lives of those at Tzaneen Blueberries.