Fairtrade has completed a full review of its standards for Fresh Fruits, Fresh Vegetables, and Prepared and Preserved Fruits and Vegetables. As a result of this process, these standards have now been merged into a single Fruits and Vegetables Standard, creating a clearer and more consistent framework.

Approved in 2025, the revision also aligns the requirements with the Fairtrade Trader Standard, ensuring greater coherence.

The new Fruits and Vegetables Standard will replace the previous versions from 1 January 2027.

Overview of key changes

1. Safeguarding against unfair trading practices

The updated standard introduces new contract requirements designed to address unfair trading practices in the supply chain.

These criteria aim to prevent situations where traders offer to buy products under Fairtrade terms only if producers also sell part of their production under conventional terms at discounted prices to offset the Fairtrade transaction.

The new requirements strengthen safeguards for both producers and traders by ensuring that the price paid is at least the Fairtrade Minimum Price and that no discounts are applied to Fairtrade transactions. This helps protect producers from unfair payment conditions and reinforces the integrity of Fairtrade trading relationships across the supply chain.

2. Environmental criteria tailored to the sector

To better address environmental challenges faced in fruit and vegetable production, the revised standard introduces environmental requirements specific to this sector.

During the review process, stakeholders highlighted the need to address environmental and climate-related issues more directly within this standard, rather than relying mainly on the generic environmental requirements included in other Fairtrade standards.

As a result, the new standard includes additional measures such as the development and implementation of an Environmental Action Plan, supporting producers in identifying key environmental risks and taking concrete steps to address them.

3. Increased traceability

The updated standard also strengthens traceability requirements within Fairtrade supply chains.

Small Producer Organisations are now required to clearly indicate which producer supplied the bananas in each box. Whereas, Hired Labour Organisations must clearly mark the boxes with the FLO-ID of the producer organisation supplying the bananas. As well as  the information regarding the packing date and the packing station for both set-ups.

Towards evolved standards

As announced on 25 November 2025, Fairtrade International is currently performing an evolution of its standards. It should be noted the changes considered for this merge will not be affected by that exercise. In fact, the changes considered as part of this process will be taken forward.

Read the final standard for Small Producer Organisations and for Hired Labour Organisation.