Chiquita Farms Certified to Labor Standard

NEW YORK - Jan 18/05 - SNS -- Chiquita Brands International, Inc.'s banana farms in Guatemala and Honduras have been certified by independent auditors as being in compliance with the Social Accountability 8000 labor and human rights standard.

The company said this means all banana farms in Latin America owned by Chiquita are now certified to the SA8000 international labor standard in addition to the stringent environmental standards of the Rainforest Alliance. These farms cover approximately 15,000 hectares (37,000 acres) in total area and provide employment to more than 14,000 people.

Chiquita adopted SA8000 as the labor standard in its Code of Conduct in 2000, and the company committed to achieve SA8000 compliance and third-party certification in all of its owned banana divisions by year-end 2005.

In 2002, Chiquita’s banana division in Costa Rica earned SA8000 certification, and the company’s owned farms in Panama and Colombia were certified in 2003. (The company’s banana operations in Colombia were sold in June 2004, and the new owner has agreed to maintain SA8000 certification on these farms.) Intertek Testing Services completed inspections of Chiquita’s banana production, harvesting and packaging operations in the Maya division (Guatemala and Honduras) in October 2004 and issued the compliance certificate for this division early this year. In each of these countries, Chiquita’s farms were the first major agricultural operations to achieve SA8000 certification.