Chiquita's Senior Management Has Continually

¶ … Chiquita's senior management has continually been challenged with how best to manage the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), European tariffs, and he commodity-like nature of its business model. These factors taken together have often led to decisions being made that were unethical and lacking in insight into how they impacted the social responsibility of the company globally. Chiquita has also had affiliations with paramilitary groups in Columbia, paying them for protection and also due to extortion attempts. This was in direct violation to U.S.

laws, which eventually led to the company receiving a $25M fine from the U.S. government. Chiquita eventually sold the subsidiary in Columbia and exited the country. Tariffs throughout Europe significantly reduced sales of Chiquita products throughout the majority of banana-consuming countries in that and other regions of the world, leading to the company filing for bankruptcy protection in November, 2011. Chiquita had previously been denied entry into these key markets based on the trading alliances that many European nations had with former colonies and preferred pricing structures in place.

In 1999 Chiquita adopted an all-inclusive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program and in 2000 appointed a president in charge of CSR as well. The company announced that the four key values of integrity, respect, opportunity and responsibility would now anchor their overall CSR strategies and initiatives. Chiquita also began self-audits of all farms and supply chain programs and initiatives to ensure compliance. All of these efforts at compliance paid off when the company announced in 2002 that 56% of sales were from farms that had been inspected and passed their own internal audits.

The company also joined the Better Banana Project and also attained SA8000 certification in 2000. Chiquita was named one of the top 20 sustainable stock picks in 2005 and had successfully rejuvenated its brand through the use of targeted, highly selective CSR programs and initiatives. Net Sales rose in 2003 to $2.6B, up from $1.6B the year before and in 2006 the company reported record net sales of $4.5B, largely attributable to the turn-around brought about by their redefining their business using the CSR frameworks and programs.

Chiquita had been able to turn compliance into a competitive advantage and also create a unique niche for themselves as a socially conscious grower with strong alliances to The Better Banana Project and The Rainforest Alliance. They were the only multinational corporation to also provider worker's rights for their farm workers and eventually required suppliers to also abide by these requirements. 2. Write at least three main issues, presented using bullet points. 1.

The continual improvement of worker conditions and the eventual adoption of worker rights globally was one of the pivotal points in the company's transformation.