FDBusiness.com

FrieslandCampina and Unilever have joined forces in a project that will boost the availability of sustainable dairy ingredients. Key elements of this project are animal welfare, energy use, waste management and reduction of the carbon footprint. This year, a total of twelve farms operated by FrieslandCampina member farmers have been assessed against Unilever’s criteria and another 118 farms will be assessed before the end of March 2012. This will allow Unilever to buy sustainable dairy ingredients from FrieslandCampina before the end of next year.

Dirk-Jan de With, vice-president procurement global food ingredients of Unilever, explains: “We are always looking for ways of working with our suppliers to drive sustainability in our supply chain. Within the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan we are committed to source all our agricultural raw materials sustainably by 2020. As dairy is one of our top ten raw materials we are pleased to work together with FrieslandCampina on sustainable dairy.”

Independent auditor, Control Union, is supporting the technical process, gap analysis and assessments. Based on the outcome of the first assessments, Control Union has made recommendations and improvement plans in order to fully embed the Unilever Sustainable Agriculture Code. These recommendations will be incorporated during 2012. The farms included in the project will carry out a self assessment each year.

Roelof Joosten, executive director ingredients of Royal FrieslandCampina, says: “We are glad that at FrieslandCampina we are already able to fulfill the Unilever criteria on sustainability. This is an opportunity to reduce the total eco footprint in the entire production chain.”

FrieslandCampina announced in its corporate strategy, route2020, that it was aiming for climate-neutral growth between 2010 and 2020. To achieve this, it is working closely with the member farmers of its dairy co-operative to devise a standard for sustainable dairy farming.