t is a rare thing that brings us joy but does not trouble our conscience. And we, as consumers, are weighing cause and effect – our own pleasures against, say, the wellbeing of the planet – all the more carefully.
It is a good thing, then, that some producers have been doing exactly the same. Ferrero, the sweet packaged foods manufacturer, has built a business model with a strong commitment to sustainability and responsible sourcing.
The company’s dedication to using only the highest quality ingredients, and ensuring sustainability to benefit people and the planet, is considered at every stage of the business.
I
The global brand that is putting the environment – and the people who
grow its ingredients – at the heart of its operations
We work closely with suppliers. They have to
see that our goals are achievable and how they and their communities are going to benefit
Dedicated staff Mario Abreu, Ferrero's
chief sustainability officer
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For more information visit ferrero.co.uk
Ferrero’s drive for more sustainable chocolate
Spilling the beans
Mario Abreu, Ferrero’s chief sustainability officer, explains: “It all starts with cocoa, the central ingredient in our products. We source 100 per cent of our cocoa through independently managed sustainability standards such as Rainforest Alliance, Cocoa Horizons, Fairtrade Foundation and others.”
Ferrero’s core growers are in Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ecuador and Colombia. “Our beans are also fully traceable,” continues Abreu, “which is to say that we know exactly where they come from. And by ‘exactly’, we’re talking about the farms that produced them, not just their country of origin.
“We mainly source raw cocoa beans, which we process at our own production plants, ensuring they are of the quality we need for our products,” says Abreu. “But we use technology to map farms and growing areas, so we know not just where they are, but their size and how productive they are.
“This knowledge is very important because it allows us, a business of international standing and influence, to establish meaningful relationships with farmers, co-operatives and communities, and this means we can work towards all kinds of desirable outcomes: we can improve yields, and therefore livelihoods, by replacing old trees and planting new ones; we can introduce new crops to help growers diversify their income; and we can manage and reduce our environmental impact, fighting deforestation and forest degradation as well as providing habitat corridors.”
A long-term member of the World Cocoa Foundation, the International Cocoa Initiative, and a founding member of the Cocoa & Forests Initiative, Ferrero is also working to address crucial human rights issues long associated with cocoa farming.
Abreu continues: “The challenges facing the cocoa industry are complex. They require organisations, governments and industry partners to work together to drive widescale positive change – beyond our individual supply chains.”
All in hand Ferrero is ranked number one for manufacturing in the latest WWF Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard
Last year, Ferrero renewed its ongoing partnership with Save the Children through an €8 million (£6.6 million) project to further protect young people in cocoa-growing communities. The programme will strengthen child protection systems in west Africa, increase access to education and serve to empower women and adolescents. Save the Children will provide strategic guidance and technical support on the ground.
“Sustainability is about more than the environment. It’s about the people who live in it, too,” Abreu says. “There’s a bigger picture than the word suggests. We have to think of all aspects.”
Ferrero’s record on its other ingredients is every bit as encouraging. It ranked as the number one manufacturer in the WWF’s most recent Palm Oil Buyers Scorecard, and it has become something of a role model to the industry.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) is a body which certifies palm oil supply chains as sustainable. Ferrero implemented an RSPO-certified supply chain in 2015 and was one of the first global companies to achieve this, but the company has gone much further. Its Ferrero Palm Oil Charter, developed with the non-profit Earthworm Foundation, goes beyond the RSPO’s requirements and includes full traceability, respect for workers’ rights, the maintenance of areas of high conservation value and the protection of endangered species.
“We work closely with suppliers and develop roadmaps with them to find the best ways to reach the aims of the charter,” says Abreu. “Collaboration is very important. You can’t just impose an audit on a small farmer. They have to see that our goals are achievable and how they and their communities are going to benefit.”
Seeing the wood for the trees Ferrero is working in collaboration with Chester Zoo to spread the message that palm oil can be sustainable
In the UK, the company has teamed up with Chester Zoo to raise awareness of the zoo’s Sustainable Palm Oil Communities project, an ambitious initiative which aims to transform the buying habits of restaurants and other food service providers, one community at a time.
The zoo’s field conservation manager, Cat Barton, the co-creator of the project, said: “We want to drive a cultural shift towards deforestation-free palm oil in order to protect wildlife. The partnership with Ferrero has been crucial in helping the zoo get its message out there.
“We need to educate people that deforestation-free palm oil exists, and to look at conservation at the landscape level, to provide ‘wild’ corridors between habitats so that wildlife can move freely and safely between them.
“Securing biodiversity and arresting deforestation is a matter of teamwork on the ground. Smallholders, farmers, local governments, manufacturers, NGOs and scientists need to be sat around the same table. But we’ve seen it can be done.”
Ferrero has taken a similar long-term approach to its hazelnuts. It has established a 25-30 per cent market share in global supply, in large part thanks to its ownership of the Oltan Group in Turkey, where the majority of hazelnuts are grown.
The hazelnut supply chain has specific challenges. For example, there are about 470,000 officially registered hazelnut farmers in Turkey, with hazelnuts often grown on small family orchards. Ferrero only procures their hazelnuts from about one-third of these farms and takes great care to ensure responsibility within its own value chain.
Ferrero actively participates in a public-private partnership in Turkey with the European Association of Chocolate, Biscuits and Confectionery Industries and the International Labour Organisation – and the company continues to drive for a sustainable hazelnut production, working to optimise yields and identify new growing sites to reduce climate sensitivity.
But it’s not just in supply chains that Ferrero is pioneering sustainable practices. The company has pledged to halve all greenhouse gas emissions from its internationally owned operations and reduce end-to-end emissions for each tonne of its products by 43 per cent by 2030 (using 2018 as its base year). Ferrero is committed to playing a vital role in helping to meet the goals of the UN’s Paris Agreement to limit the average global temperature increase to 1.5C, and this means that on a planetary scale, Ferrero is playing its part in creating a more sustainable world.
Whether we’re talking about the way it sources its ingredients, its manufacturing standards or its commitment to developing the best of the best products, quality is at the heart of everything that Ferrero does, and the values that distinguish the company now have been part of its make-up since it was founded in 1946.
“We take pride in our approach and always have,” says Abreu. “It isn’t enough to be good when we can aim for great.” The difference between “good” and “great” often lies in the smallest details, of course. Abreu continues: “We are proud to provide our consumers with unique brands that are loved generation after generation, delivering not only a great taste but produced in a way that also protects people and our planet.”
At Ferrero, they like to say l’angelo è nei dettagli – the angel is in the detail – and when it comes to sustainability you can see just that, the company is living by its motto of “Quality at Heart”.
Bringing joy with Quality at Heart
words by: Joseph Furey
