Our Airline Collaboration for Lower-Emission Fresh Produce

Fresh Del Monte’s collaboration with airlines to offset emissions from airfreight of fresh produce connects a time-sensitive supply chain with a practical climate responsibility. It uses airline relationships to identify emissions linked to shipments, support lower-carbon flying and compensate for the portion that cannot yet be removed.

For Australian consumers, this issue sits within a familiar market. Global fresh produce reaches warehouses and retailers through air gateways in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth, while domestic supply travels long distances to the same cities. Demand for rapid, temperature-controlled deliveries makes aviation relevant to bananas, avocados, pineapples, citrus and other perishables.

Air freight can prevent food waste by getting products to market quickly, yet each flight consumes fuel and creates emissions. The environmental task is to preserve freshness and market access while avoiding unnecessary journeys, improving aircraft and cargo operations, and dealing honestly with emissions that remain.

A credible programme must therefore do more than purchase certificates after flights. It should connect shipment data with airline data, disclose the calculation boundary, prioritise reductions within the freight system, and describe how any final offset contribution is verified and applied. That discipline turns an abstract climate promise into information that Australian customers, suppliers and auditors can assess.

Why aviation matters in Australia’s fresh produce supply chain

Airfreight emissions can be compared across several kinds of intervention. Each approach changes emissions differently and requires evidence appropriate to its claims.

Australian conditions make this distinction useful. Air freight is especially relevant on long-haul routes into major gateways, while road movements from Sydney or Melbourne to regional wholesalers create additional emissions. At the border, importers must reconcile cargo records with Australian Border Force customs and biosecurity requirements, including phytosanitary documentation. Those controls protect plant health and require careful coordination, since route or packaging changes must maintain compliance, cold-chain integrity and delivery windows.

How airline partnerships turn emissions data into action

Fresh Del Monte’s collaboration pairs shipment information with data from airline cargo partners across its international operations. Useful fields include origin and destination, aircraft and routing, payload, flight distance and the share of fuel attributable to freight. This enables a shipment-level estimate rather than a company-wide average that conceals inefficient routes or underfilled aircraft. Because produce often travels through connecting hubs, the calculation must capture every leg rather than only the longest flight.

The resulting estimate guides a hierarchy of action. Airline partners can improve routing, increase cargo density, reduce idle ground time and introduce sustainable aviation fuel. Contracted activity or related funding can also support verified projects for residual emissions. The wider programme—including tree planting, sustainable sourcing, protected-land monitoring and education initiatives—is tracked in our CSR reporting, allowing airfreight progress to be considered alongside Fresh Del Monte’s broader environmental and social commitments.

Measuring the footprint without false precision

Credible airfreight accounting starts with fuel consumed and then allocates it between passenger and cargo activity. Cargo allocations commonly consider payload, distance and load factor. A lifecycle approach may also include aviation fuel production and upstream supply emissions. Estimates should state whether they cover carbon dioxide alone or a broader greenhouse-gas inventory, while disclosing assumptions where aircraft type, route and allocation methods differ.

In Australia, this data must also operate alongside practical import controls. Australian Border Force documentation, phytosanitary certificates and cargo descriptions help reconcile what arrived, how it was packed and which consignments moved. Customs and biosecurity records do not calculate emissions, but consistent identifiers can prevent duplicated records and strengthen traceability. For buyers in Brisbane and Perth, where long domestic legs follow international arrivals, the same principle applies to the complete journey rather than only the airport gate.

Moving beyond compensation

Offsets have a role, but they work best after direct reductions. Sustainable aviation fuel can lower lifecycle carbon dioxide when a verified low-carbon pathway replaces conventional jet fuel, although supply is limited and the benefit depends on production, traceability and avoided emissions. Airline collaboration can support fuel offtake or book-and-claim arrangements, while route optimisation and fuller aircraft remain available sooner. A credible programme should publish how fuel volumes relate to actual cargo activity.

Produce operations create another lever: preventing losses that trigger replacement shipments. Better forecasting, careful order quantities, right-sized packaging and reliable cold-chain monitoring can avoid both discarded stock and an extra flight. Perspectives on reducing food loss are available from Shoku-e’s food loss resources. The strongest combined plan treats waste reduction and emissions reduction as linked controls, because a tonne shipped to replace spoiled food carries both freight and cultivation impacts.

A practical framework for credible action

A practical framework should reflect the order in which environmental interventions deliver the greatest value. It should distinguish direct reductions from compensation and preserve enough data for independent review.

• Establish a consistent method for calculating shipment emissions across airlines, regions and Australian trade lanes, recording payload, routing, fuel assumptions and allocation rules.
• Prioritise reductions within airfreight operations, including fuller loads, fewer avoidable connections, reduced ground running and suitable aircraft for each route.
• Reduce waste and the need for replacement journeys through forecasting, packaging and cold-chain controls, while supporting sustainable aviation fuel where supply is credible.
• Address only residual emissions with verified projects and disclose project attributes, safeguards, monitoring arrangements and registry retirement details separately from direct reductions.

Australian retailers and wholesalers can use these records when assessing transport proposals, comparing carrier performance and reviewing sustainability claims. The evidence also helps suppliers identify which improvements produce lasting reductions and which merely shift accounting between organisations. Reporting the same information consistently makes comparisons possible without treating an offset contribution as equivalent to a change in aircraft efficiency.

What credible progress looks like for Australia

Success should be visible in operating data as well as corporate climate claims. Fresh Del Monte can track emissions per tonne-kilometre by trade lane, the proportion of freight moved on fuller or more efficient flights, sustainable aviation fuel used, food-loss rates and tonnes supported by verified projects. This matters because the programme spans farms and packing operations in different regions before produce reaches Australian distribution centres.

The practical takeaway for Australia is that airfreight should be treated as one part of a controlled food system: keep genuinely time-sensitive produce moving, use fewer avoidable flights and stronger loads, lower the carbon intensity of necessary journeys, and compensate only the residual emissions with transparent evidence.