The Kraft Heinz Co. has released its inaugural corporate social responsibility (CSR) report, revealing the global food company’s CSR strategy and goals, and announcing a new commitment to transition to 100 percent cage-free eggs in all global operations by 2025. According to Kraft Heinz, the report is a key element of its “enhanced commitment to CSR performance and a two-way dialogue with stakeholders.”
“At Kraft Heinz, we’re focused on addressing the most critical environmental and societal challenges affecting our industry and global communities, and finding ways to drive meaningful change—today and in the future,” said Bernardo Hees, CEO at Kraft Heinz. “We began our CSR journey back in 2015—grounded in the ideals of our founders, J.L. Kraft and H.J. Heinz—and are proud to share the steps we’ve taken to improve our planet and its people.”
Kraft Heinz says its CSR strategy prioritizes the issues that matter most to its business and stakeholders and focuses on the areas where it can have the greatest impact. It includes four key pillars:
- Better Supply Chain—creating a sustainable, global supply chain by establishing responsible farm-to-market ingredient and material sourcing policies;
- Better Environment—promoting environmental sustainability by managing and reducing the company’s resource needs to minimize its impact on the planet and preserve natural resources;
- Better Products—meeting the needs and demands of today’s consumers by improving the nutritional and wellness profiles of Kraft Heinz products; and
- Better Communities—strengthening communities around the world by making a sustainable difference in the fight to end global hunger and malnutrition.
The strategy also builds upon CSR goals and policies Kraft Heinz announced earlier this year aimed at eliminating global hunger and malnutrition, creating a more sustainable supply chain and reducing its environmental footprint, as well as a more recent commitment to raise standards for treatment of broiler chickens in its U.S. supply chain.
In the report, Kraft Heinz also introduces two new global goals within its Better Supply Chain and Better Products pillars. In the first, Kraft Heinz will expand its previous commitments to source cage-free eggs in North America, Europe and Latin America, and will transition to a 100 percent cage-free egg supply globally by 2025. To date, the company has transitioned one-third of its global egg supply to cage-free.
“We congratulate Kraft Heinz for extending its leadership on animal welfare globally,” said Chetana Mirle, senior director of farm animals at The Humane Society International. “This new commitment ensuring their supply chains, including those in Asia and Africa, are 100 percent cage-free by 2025 provides further encouragement for egg producers throughout the world to transition to cage-free housing systems. We look forward to supporting Kraft Heinz in the implementation of this policy.”
Additionally, the company will expand its product nutrition guidelines globally, with a target to achieve 70 percent compliance by 2023. As the foundation of the company’s nutrition and wellness approach, the guidelines recommend limits on calories, saturated fat, sodium and sugar; encourage positive vitamins and minerals, as well as nutritious food groups like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and low-fat dairy; and favor wellness attributes like natural and organic.
Additional highlights from the report include:
- Sourcing 100 percent RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil, more than 90 percent of which is traceable to the mill;
- Delivering training and resources to more than 2,000 Honduran coffee farmers to help them increase their yields and incomes;
- Ending the use of fish aggregating devices (FAD) for all tuna sourcing activities in Australia, putting the company on track to use 100 percent FAD-free tuna in all Greenseas products by the end of 2017;
- Reducing waste-to-landfill by 9.5 percent;
- Achieving landfill-free operations at six Kraft Heinz facilities: Albany and New Ulm in Minnesota; Ft. Smith, Arkansas; Suffolk, Virginia; Mt. Royal, Quebec, Canada; and Pudliszki, Poland;
- Reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 5.1 percent;
- Implementing renewable energy projects at three manufacturing sites: Fresno, Calif.; Albany, Minnesota; and Aligarh, India.
- Reformulating Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and Oscar Mayer hot dogs to remove artificial flavors, dyes and/or preservatives;
- Reducing sodium and sugar levels across the company’s U.K. product portfolio, improving the nutritional profiles of core products like Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup (34 percent less sugar and 62 percent less sodium) and Heinz Beanz (27 percent less sugar and 52 percent less sodium); and
- Supporting the donation of more than 124 million meals to people in need, including 24 million meals to U.S. food banks.
Kraft Heinz’s complete 2017 CSR Report can be viewed here.
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