Cultivating Ingredients Better
The quality and integrity of our products depends on a sustainable supply chain with successful and thriving farming communities and ecosystems.
We believe sustainable agriculture offers solutions to interrelated issues such as human rights, water security, climate resilience, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction and women’s empowerment. We are working with our suppliers and a range of partners to create systemic change in our agricultural supply chain.
Engaging our suppliers
We do not buy agricultural raw materials directly from farms, but mostly processed and refined ingredients from suppliers. Therefore, it is very important to us to work with our suppliers to achieve our vision of sustainable agriculture and to work with them to engage their farm base, with an emphasis on collaboration and continuous improvement.
We are exploring ways to integrate sustainable agriculture issues in our supplier audit procedures, for example when we audit our Supplier Guiding Principles and food quality requirements at the processing facilities.
We are also committed to collaboration across the wider industry and support credible third-party standards to simplify assurance and certifications for the farmers in our supply chain. For example, the Farm Sustainability Assessment of the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, the Bonsucro sustainable cane standard and Rainforest Alliance certifications are three of the leading standards we support.
In addition, we engage directly with farmers in key sourcing regions to help address material issues in our agricultural supply chain.
Connections to Other Sustainability Priorities
Our sustainable agriculture strategy is linked to our other priority sustainability workstreams including water, climate change, waste, women’s empowerment and human rights.