About Us - A Short History

When my partner Adam Brett and I lived in Uganda, farmers often asked us how they could sell their fruits in Europe. So, together with our friend Angello Ndyaguma, we designed simple solar driers for sun drying tropical fruits. Working with local development agencies, we trialed the technology with innovative farmers. To read more about the fair trade company we founded in Uganda, please go to Fruits of the Nile.

In the early 1990s, Adam and I took the first Ugandan sun dried fruits (mangoes, pineapples and bananas) back to England and sold them at markets. People loved them. Harvested when fully ripe and immediately sun dried meant that they had startlingly full flavours. They were also 100% pure fruit, free from all preservatives.

In 1993, we launched Tropical Wholefoods, rented our own packaging factory and began to sell to healthfood and wholefood shops in London. Soon British healthfood distributors took on the products giving us national distribution.

In 1996, we asked the cereal bar specialist, Fullwell Mill to make dried fruit and honey cereal bars for us, forging the start of a highly successful partnership. By 2001, both FM and TW were in need of bigger premises, so Tropical Wholefoods merged with Fullwell Mill moving all our packaging equipment from London to Sunderland. All Tropical Wholefoods products are now packaged and distributed at Fullwell Mill's BRC Grade A approved Soil Association certified factory in Sunderland. Here we are also able to manufacture and pack private label products for organisations like Traidcraft, as well to create specialist bars & products for other private label clients.

Today, our team not only work with Fruits of the Nile in Uganda but with partners in many parts of the world,
providing training in food processing, quality assurance and business management, as well as providing fair trade markets for their products.
Kate Sebag, Marketing Director

Values - our values as a fair trade company

Comments - lovely things people have said about us over the years

Meet us - put a face to a name

Factory - take a look at some of the processes inside our factory

Directions - coming to see us? Click here for maps and directions