The prominence of agricultural supply chains within the sustainability strategies of major food producers has been increasing over recent years – and this trend was further underlined last month with the launch of sustainability pledges related to ten key ingredients by US food group General Mills.
By definition, agricultural supply chains have always been critical to food companies’ operations but the way in which these companies relate to and interact with their them has evolved in recent times and will likely change further.
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In that sense, the General Mills pledges are in keeping with how food companies must approach how they deal with agricultural suppliers. However, the scope of the pledges arguably goes further than the company and many of its peers have gone before.
General Mills has committed to source sustainably 100% of its ten priority ingredients by 2020, namely oats, wheat, corn, dairy, fibre packaging, as well as cocoa, vanilla, palm oil, sugar cane and sugar beet. These commodities represent around 50% of the company’s total raw material procurement.
That General Mills has put itself in the vanguard in this area is no surprise to Professor Charles Benbrook of the Center for Sustaining Agriculture and Natural Resources at Washington State University.
Speaking to just-food, Professor Benbrook says the company has consistently been at the forefront of “trying to push the envelope on safer ways to produce food and dealing with pesticide use and residues”.
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By GlobalDataHe believes the General Mills sustainability strategy has placed the company among the relatively high corporate achievers on environmental stewardship. “I think if you arrayed all of the major US companies on a spectrum of trying to push the envelope towards more sustainable production systems, and the companies at the forefront of that get rated ten and those that are doing nothing get rated zero, General Mills has consistently been in the upper half. Probably not very often over a seven but still in the upper half.”
However, Professor Benbrook believes some scepticism about major global corporations announcing bold undertakings on sustainability is understandable. “This new round of pledges is very new. There are not very many details about how they are going to accomplish any meaningful change or how they are going to even measure what’s going on,” he says. “Let’s just say a certain degree of scepticism is always warranted when corporations make this sort of commitment but I think General Mills deserves the benefit of the doubt and hopefully they will make some real progress.”
However, Conrad MacKerron, senior vice president at As You Sow, an organisation that promotes environmental and social corporate responsibility through shareholder advocacy, coalition building, and innovative legal strategies, questioned whether the company’s use of the term “‘sustainable'” was always fully justified. There is a difference between registering continued improvement and being truly sustainable, MacKerron contends.
“What strikes me at first glance is the continued overuse of the term ‘sustainability’ in corporate PR and their presumptive manner in self-defining it,” MacKerron told just-food. “Several of the stated commitments involve demonstrating ‘continuous improvement’ which is laudable, but does not demonstrate sustainability. Scholars of sustainability will say that the term shouldn’t be thrown around loosely and that actually demonstrating sustainability takes decades.”
In response to MacKerron’s observation, Jerry Lynch, vice president and chief sustainability officer at General Mills, said: “Our compelling reason to do this is about the sustainability – focusing on that in our business model and sustainability as a whole in the face of increasing population and challenges in both community and natural resources. In order to thrive as a business, we have to play a role in helping address these issues.
“The reason we made this as a public commitment makes it very clear to our suppliers our intent and helps to really facilitate deeper engagement in addressing some of these challenges. There is always direct business value to be unlocked with deeper partnerships. It also helps to attract innovation that will accelerate the work.”
While the pledges relating to oats, wheat, corn and dairy do indeed refer to 100% of the commodity being sourced from growing regions “that demonstrate continuous improvement”, how that improvement is measured will be informed by third-party entities.
For the dairy pledge, the improvement will be measured using the Dairy Sustainability Framework (US) or other comparable environmental metrics, while progress in wheat and corn will be measured against the frameworks developed by Field-to-Market, an organisation which works to create opportunities across the agricultural supply chain for continuous improvements in productivity, environmental quality and human well-being.
As can be seen across the board in the sustainable agriculture initiatives of major corporations, collaboration with external stakeholders is critical in providing both expertise and credibility. On that note, General Mills claims WWF as a key partner. The company has been working with WWF since 2010 on ways to “integrate sustainability into the company’s supply chain”. Work undertaken in partnership with WWF includes a supply risk analysis of the company’s agricultural sourcing and water risk assessment.
Commenting on the pledges, Dave McLaughlin, vice president of agriculture at WWF said: “By understanding their environmental risks, prioritising where the company can have the greatest impact and committing to sustainable sourcing, General Mills can have a significant impact. The company has an opportunity to take a leading role in the move toward global sustainable agriculture, while addressing critical issues like ecosystem health and water scarcity.”
In addition to working with Field-to-Market, General Mills pointed out that it is working with the Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture and Bonsucro, as well as NGOs such as The Nature Conservancy and CARE.
As an example of General Mills’ commitment to working collaboratively with agricultural suppliers, Benbrook cites a pilot project currently underway in Idaho where the company is helping farmers identify optimal crop rotations to produce higher yields and reduce reliance on pesticides. This initiative, he explains, aims to help farmers find the right crops to use for rotation from a technical standpoint and provide a market for them.
“I think that’s a very innovative and promising direction for food companies that want to help growers adopt more environmentally friendly and sustainable practices,” says Benbrook.
Some companies may be further along this path than others but closer collaboration with agricultural suppliers represents the direction of travel for major food manufacturers. And ambitions sustainability goals, such as those General Mills has set itself, can arguably only be achieved through ever closer engagement with agricultural suppliers large and small.
