For the second year running, Auckland business All Good Organics has been named one of the world's 144 most-ethically run businesses.
The list, which is unranked, is compiled by the United States-based Ethisphere Institute.
All Good Organics introduced to New Zealand Fair Trade bananas from Ecuador's El Guabo co-operative and it also sells three Fair Trade-accredited soft drinks here.
One of its founders, Simon Coley, says the company sells products that are good for the land, for the people producing them and ultimately for the people consuming them.
"The first thing we look for are the people that are growing it. With El Guabo we were fortunate enough to find a group of family-run farms who have organised themselves to compete with much larger multi-nationals quite successfully.
"Going to meet them and finding out how the sale of their bananas is benefitting them on the ground has been our greatest motivation.
"Seeing the amount of care they put into producing these bananas - you can really judge the quality of the goods by the people who produce them."
Mr Coley says the organic product also tastes much better when such care goes into its growing.
Consumers apparently agree and since the company was listed last year as one of the 'World's Most Ethical', sales of its Fair Trade bananas have grown by about 30 percent and with the introduction of more drinks, sales of those have grown by about 500 percent.
"We're finding that you can kind of blend some degree of altruism with commerce.
"We like to think that the values that we present are not just measured in dollars and cents, and that if people who like and aspire to having those values want to make that purchase, that's a very virtuous kind of relationship between what we produce and the people who buy our products."
Mr Coley says the provenance of food is becoming a bigger issue for many people and they want a transparent supply chain so they know exactly what it is they are putting in their mouths.
All Good Organics has just 18 employees.
