Our organic avocado oil factory SUNVADO is based in Yirgalem, Southern Ethiopia. We source our fresh organic avocados from a group of more than 50,000 farmers. These farmers do not grow their avocados on large scale commercial plantations. Instead, the avocados grow mostly on organic coffee farms, where the farmers use the avocado trees to provide shade for their coffee. Before the opening of SUNVADO, the farmers did not have a market for their organic avocadoes and most of the avocados were not collected or harvested and left in the field. We made it our mission to change that. Now that the factory is up and running, the farmers have access to an organic premium price for their avocados. In addition, we are working to set up a Fair For Life certificaiton, which will provide additional benefits to our farmers.

The Sunvado factory started production mid 2019. The state-of-the-art avocado processing line was installed by our European equipment suppliers. With our top-notch production line, we are able to produce organic avocado oil according to the highest quality and food safety standards. The factory is also creating proper jobs in a region with limited employment opportunities. During the avocado season, our processing facility employs around 60 workers, half of which are women. In addition, our avocado sourcing operation employs nearly 200 extension workers, field staff , harvesters and collectors. 

In this impact two-pager we highlight the most important sustainability milestones of our avocado oil sourcing in Ethiopial.

Download the report here.