Making the business case for sustainability

Sustainable practices can help to ensure long term success for poultry and other food businesses and respond to consumer and retailer pressures.

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The pressure on food businesses to meet sustainability goals is increasingly coming not only from consumers and retailers, but also from external stakeholders, including civil society, new competitors, social media and governments. But alongside these pressures, there is also pressure of ensuring long-term, reliable supplies.

Speaking at the International Production and Processing Expo (IPPE) Animal Agriculture Sustainability Summit, Jack Scott, head of sustainability North America with Nestle Purina Petcare, explained that the sustainability business case for his company was simple: The company needs to ensure a supply of ingredients while faced with growing constraints. Its sourcing strategy must ensure productivity gains to bring about long lasting, reliable supply chains.

Guiding principles

Nestle Purina, which needs 250-270 million birds to be slaughtered in the US each year to supply byproducts for its business, has three guiding sustainability principles: maintaining compatibility with human food systems; diversity in its supply chain portfolio; and, using science-based efficiencies and outcomes based on metrics.

Where compatibility with human food systems is concerned, for example, the company will never enter a space not occupied by human food production so, for example, if the egg industry goes cage free, Nestle Purina will do the same.

Working in partnership

The company’s largest environmental impacts come from its supply chain and, consequently, it works with suppliers to help reduce this. Where animal protein is concerned, 70-80 percent of that impact comes from feed production.

Working in partnership, however, is not restricted to simply working directly with suppliers. The company has recently initiated “value projects,” for example helping to reduce water run-off in agricultural areas from which it sources.

Where retailers and consumers are concerned, the company is committed to transparency and to communicating in a way that these groups will understand.

But this not always easy: The benefits of taking a “nose to tail” approach in using all parts of an animal is often rejected by consumers, despite the sustainability of this approach.

Too many companies are failing to commit to sustainability, Scott argues. In the case of Nestle Purina, the company has been able to identify possible shortfalls in its sourcing that could occur in 10-15 years from now and is already working in these areas to prevent these shortfalls occurring.

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