Act for future
Act for future
WHAT IS “ACT FOR FUTURE” ALL ABOUT?
Sustainability has been a major consumer concern influencing the food & beverage industry for many years already. However, the trend has evolved from awareness about the topic to taking action. This is the reason why we have chosen the name “act for future” for this megatrend.
According to Mintel, sustainability has become an “expectation” for food & beverage companies to offer to consumers – just like nutrition. In 2019, 87% of consumers expect companies to invest in sustainability – 22% more than in the previous year (Source: Innova Market Insights). 57% of consumers globally have become more concerned about environmental issues as a result of Covid-19 and they believe they will be stay concerned once Covid-19 has passed (Source: FMCG Gurus).
Just as sustainability is not one-dimensional, also our consumer trend “Act for future” has several sub-trends addressing the different facets of the topic:
- Cyclicality: Circular economy approach with a special focus on avoiding food waste and plastic to save the environment. In May 2020, 63% of consumers globally stated that they have made more attempts to reduce food waste compared to pre Covid-19 levels (Source: FMCG Gurus).
- Backbone: Tackling the social aspect of sustainability by turning to brands and companies who are treating all people and animals well.
- Diversify for good: Biodiversity and regenerative agriculture as means to secure the future food supply for an ever-growing population.
HOW DO WE LIVE SUSTAINABILITY AT AGRANA FRUIT
At AGRANA Fruit sustainability is part of our DNA. We define it as a harmonious balance of economic, environmental and social responsibility. We care about the planet and its people. Our ambition is to be a sustainable company for a better future.
Our sustainability strategy focuses on three key issues:
- Eco efficiency: Maximizing the efficiency of our production to preserve resources
- Sourcing practices: Sourcing our raw material in a way that -positively impacts the environmental and social aspects along our supply chain
- Our people: Dedicated to current and future employees
AVOIDING FOOD WASTE
One of the guiding principles in sustainability for us at AGRANA Fruit is to utilize almost 100% of our agricultural raw materials and use low-emission technologies to minimize impacts on the environment. Therefore, it is clear for us that we reduce or re-use the organic waste in our production as much as possible.
The generated organic waste in form of by-products that is not suitable to be used for further food production, is used for animal feed. We feed pigs and bears with our organic waste from the production of fruit preparations in Brazil, France, Korea, Russia and Ukraine. Organic residues that are also not suitable for animal feed go either to compost or to biogas production. In Australia we provide our residues for compost and in Germany and Austria we send it to biogas production.
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE FOR MORE BIODIVERSITY
The Food & Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) says biodiversity is indispensable to food security and sustainable development. It helps to create and maintain healthy soils, provides place for pollinating plants, controls pests and gives habitat to wildlife.
One important strategy topic closely linked to biodiversity is regenerative agriculture. According to regenerativeagriculturedefinition.com “regenerative agriculture is a system of farming principles and practices that increases biodiversity, enriches soils, improves watersheds, and enhances ecosystem services. It aims to capture carbon in soil and aboveground biomass, reversing current global trends of atmospheric accumulation. At the same time, it offers increased yields, resilience to climate instability, and higher health and vitality for farming and ranching communities”. This means regenerative agriculture not only does less harm to the environment, it actively regenerates natural systems that support food production.
For our business at AGRANA Fruit we foresee the following principles as the most important ones for regenerative agriculture:
- Maintain soil cover
- Minimize soil disturbance (tillage)
- Maximize biodiversity (diversity of crops and of the ecosystem’s fauna & flora)
- Minimize the usage of chemicals
At AGRANA Fruit we believe in sustainability and doing good for the planet. Therefore, regenerative farming is one of the major pillars of our sustainability approach.
