An article by McCain Foods - June 6 2022.
We’re delighted to provide the following update on our sustainability journey.
We have set our company purpose towards producing planet-friendly food that brings people together. We are committed to growing food responsibly, reducing our carbon footprint, supporting the communities where we operate and ensuring a sustainable future for generations to come. This is ingrained our company ethos, inspired by our founders’ belief that good ethics is good business.
But for us, it is more than words on a page. We want to be accountable for what we say we are going to do; and this year we are proud to say we are making strong progress in each of our four sustainability pillars.
Smart & Sustainable Farming.
We had a successful Year 1 at our first Farms of the Future Canada in Florenceville, New Brunswick, setting important benchmarks, identifying sustainable agriculture techniques that are viable and practical and testing new technology and machinery. We have also:
📖 Created our Regenerative Agriculture Framework to support our farmers around the world and measure adoption of regenerative practices;
🚜 Launched new training partnerships to support the technical transition of our farmers to Regenerative agriculture; and
🌾 Developed regional climate mitigation strategies, including 20% of crops grown using stress tolerant varieties.
Resource-Efficient Operations.
Over the past year, our absolute CO2 emissions in Scopes 1 and 2 have dropped nine per cent, while our renewable electricity capacity is up to 15 per cent — paced largely by renewable energy projects including our fully operational solar farm powering our plant in Australia and the Balcarce Wind Power Purchase Agreements providing around 80 per cent renewable electricity to our Argentinian plant. There has also been an 11 per cent improvement in water-use efficiency in seven priority plants.
And we have launched a new target, aiming to cut our food waste by 50 per cent across all of our operations by 2030.
Good Food.
Today, consumers are increasingly looking for smart, planet-friendly food choices. Over the past 18 months, we have forged several partnerships that are driving positive change and are helping re-shape the food industry for the better. These include investments with Strong Roots which makes plant-based environmentally responsible frozen food, The Simple Root that has developed an innovative alternative to dairy products using root vegetables and GoodLeaf Farms, a climate-controlled, indoor vertical farm that grows leafy microgreens and baby greens for the Canadian market.
Thriving Communities.
We care about the communities where we operate. Over the past year, we have launched McCain Chips In, an employee volunteering program that supports staff with a paid day off to volunteer in their community. And despite the challenges of COVID, we donated nearly 10 million meals to families in need through NGOs and food banks around the world. This we have also impacted more than 1,000 beneficiaries through community development projects, bringing the total number to over 6,000 to date.
We are now in our third year of this sustainability journey, and we are proud of the baseline we have set and the progress we are making. Together with our partners, we will continue to work towards building a model that produces delicious, planet-friendly food.