NETHERLANDS: Unilever, FrieslandCampina build on sustainable partnership deal

Unilever and dairy giant FrieslandCampina have extended their global partnership deal with a pledge to further drive innovations in dairy, while promoting sustainable production and logistics.

The Joint Business Development Plan (JBDP) builds on Unilever's ‘Partner to Win' programme and provides a framework of how the two companies will work together to deliver Unilever's long-term strategic growth plans. These include reducing carbon emissions, cost and waste.

The two firms said they will also look at how to improve logistics operations by using innovative processes and sharing best practices globally.

Royal FrieslandCampina supplies Unilever with ingredients such as butter, butter oil, cream in aerosol cans, as well as ingredients for ice cream, soups and sauces.

A spokesperson for FrieslandCampina told just-food that it wants to use Unilever's knowledge in marketing and its own knowledge in dairy ingredients to "combine forces".

"We have a lot of product launches around ingredients and Unilever is very specialised in marketing so we want to combine those two things and maybe we will come with new products or innovations in products," said Jan-Willem ter Avest, a spokesperson for FrieslandCampina.

"They buy ingredients from us and they use them for our products, but we're not working together on innovation yet so in the future that might be possible. We can use their knowledge for our new products or for innovation in products which already exist and make them better."

The two companies will also improve logistics operations by using innovative processes and sharing best practices globally.

Avest said this will be a way of making the operations more cost efficient, but it also about "shortening the lines".

"We will combine our chains and make them more efficient," he said. "Because we are now working together we can also deliver more."

Frank van Ooijen, director of sustainability affairs at FrieslandCampina, said the partnership "fits well" with the company's sustainability programme: ‘Unilever and FrieslandCampina are each seeking growth in Asian and African markets. For both organisations, it's imperative that expansion is achieved in a sustainable manner."