Vegetables

Vegetables are an increasingly important raw material for us as we expand our portfolio of nutritious products. These ingredients must be grown with respect for people and the environment, not only because it is the right thing to do but also because more and more of our consumers expect this from us. To ensure the vegetables we source are responsibly grown, we are working with farmers through our suppliers to develop practices that protect and enhance biodiversity and respect ethical standards regarding labor rights.

Our vegetable supply chain

Note that, as of 2020, we have switched to using fresh equivalent volumes in our reporting, which might have had an impact on 2020 figures when compared to those of 2019.

Our approach to sourcing vegetables sustainably

We purchase many vegetables, including carrots, tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, garlic, potatoes, horseradish, chickpeas and spinach. Our main sources of vegetables are Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, the UK, Ukraine and the US.

As a major purchaser of vegetables, we recognize the social and environmental challenges and risks of the industry, and we are working proactively with our suppliers to not only participate in addressing them but also go beyond compliance and create shared value for as many actors as possible within our supply chain. The program aims to “ensure respect for ethical standards, reduce the environmental impact of agricultural practices and enhance biodiversity within our vegetables supply chain”. At the strategy’s heart is our Responsible Sourcing Standard (pdf, 2.4Mb).

To help us successfully design and implement our strategy, we partnered with Fundación Global Nature (FGN), a Spanish nonprofit that has spent 25 years protecting nature and biodiversity. We are also working with the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN), which provides innovative agricultural solutions to the most pressing environmental and social issues of our time.

Starting in 2017, we began supplier audits within our processed tomato supply chain, where independent verification firms checked whether our direct suppliers were implementing our Responsible Sourcing Standard (pdf, 2.4Mb). Following these audits, we realized that because the industry’s focus had traditionally been more on quality and food safety, some labor and environmental aspects had been left behind. Since identifying these issues, we have worked with our direct suppliers to map our supply chain right down to the processors that receive the vegetables directly from farmers. 

Once the processors have been identified, we ask them to organize farm assessments that will provide a baseline for each sourcing location, leveraging the Farm Sustainability Assessment ethical standard from the Sustainable Agriculture Initiative Platform. By using the standard, other industry players do not need to request additional assessments from the same farmers. We then expect each processor to develop and implement an improvement plan covering all farms that supply them.

To make sure our efforts are driven toward the right locations, processors located in low-risk countries (as per Maplecroft risk indices) are not requested to organize farm assessments, and the associated volumes are considered as responsibly sourced.

In 2020, the program covered 88 suppliers that, together, supply around 40 different vegetables. Of these, 11 vegetables represent the majority sourced: tomatoes, potatoes, onions, pumpkins, peas, carrots, beets, garlic, chickpeas, bell peppers and cassava.

Unfortunately, 2020 was a difficult year for our program as farm assessments were prevented in many locations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Conversely, thanks to the existing program organization, our work on agricultural practices with farmers in Europe did take place as planned since participating suppliers had already trained their farmers on the required activities.

Transparency

To hold our suppliers and ourselves accountable and drive industry-wide transparency, we have published the list of our vegetables Tier 1 suppliers and their processing sites (pdf, 200Kb), along with the countries of origin.

Natural capital

We want to initiate a positive change across the farms supplying our vegetables. Since we mainly purchase processed raw materials from our suppliers, we aim to drive this change at the farms supplying them. We have increased the number of involved suppliers to 72, covering more than 75% of our global vegetables supply. Behind these suppliers are large-scale farming operations as well as farmers growing vegetables on only a few hectares. The program provides a toolbox that can be used to support all kinds of farmers to improve their practices and sustain their operations. Nestlé provides an operational framework and supports the suppliers embarking on this journey with technical and material assistance.

With a selection of our farmers and suppliers, we go further than compliance and help them more carefully manage their impact on the environment and the communities around them. We are beginning to support them in implementing some key agricultural practices around water, soils, nutrients, crop protection and energy, which our partner FGN identified would provide the greatest impact. We will also help them launch and implement their own biodiversity enhancement roadmap. To help these suppliers implement their improvements, we leverage SAN’s international network of partners. In 2020, we actively worked with seven of our suppliers in various European countries on this part of the program.

Learn more about how we are working with our vegetable farmers to create shared value.